Iran yesterday claimed to have conducted final tests on a missile capable of reaching Israel and US forces around the Middle East, and was poised to deploy the weapon with its armed forces.
The claim, confirming an Israeli allegation last week, is certain to heighten tensions with the US, amid allegations from Washington that Iran was making rapid progress in a clandestine programme to build nuclear warheads.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Hamid Reza Asefi, said the test on the Shahab-3 missile occurred several weeks ago, not in the past few days, as the Israeli press had reported.
”Apparently, the Israelis are late in getting the information,” Asefi said. ”It was a final test before delivering the missile to the armed forces.”
He said the Shahab-3’s range was ”the same as in Iran’s previous tests”.
That range is believed to be about 1 300km, long enough to reach Israel and US forces in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghani-stan, Pakistan and Turkey.
The announcement came on the eve of a visit by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, aimed at persuading Tehran to accept more intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities.
Yesterday, Dr ElBaradei said that Iran needs ”to give us additional authority for the international community to be fully satisfied that the programme is completely dedicated to peaceful purposes”.
The IAEA director is due to meet President Mohamed Khatami tomorrow to express his concerns. He said Iran would have to respond in ”days or weeks”.
The government had to provide ”at least a commitment … followed quickly by concrete action … to make sure that all nuclear material in Iran has been declared to us and to [help us] understand fully all aspects of Iran’s nuclear program,” ElBaradei said.
Last year, President George Bush declared Iran to be a member of the ”axis of evil” for its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons and its links with terrorist groups. He warned Tehran last month to keep its promise not to develop nuclear weapons, saying that if not ”we will deal with that”.
Iran claims to be on the way to building a self-sufficient nuclear power industry capable of mining uranium, enriching it and reprocessing it after it is used as fuel. But Tehran has always denied pursuing a nu clear weapons programme, a claim that has usually met scepticism from western analysts, who point out that with Iran’s formidable oil reserves, the country has little need for nuclear power.
ElBaradei was yesterday echoing an appeal made by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, during a visit to Tehran last week, when he called on the government there to ”unconditionally and quickly” sign an additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, allowing intrusive inspections and soil tests. Under the current IAEA protocol, inspectors only have the right to visit facilities named and made available to them by the Iranians.
In his visit to Tehran this week, ElBaradei is expected to ask the government to suspend some of its nuclear research and development work until the IAEA’s concerns are addressed. That work includes dual use technologies such as the manufacture of centrifuges capable of enriching uranium, and work on a ”heavy water” nuclear plant at the central Iranian town of Arak.
Since the invasion of Iraq, several Iranian officials have stressed the need to deter a US attack. The Shahab-3 is seen as crucial to that deterrent. Prior to yesterday’s confirmation from Tehran, US intelligence had estimated that Iran could fire off a few of the missiles in a crisis but had not perfected it. – Guardian Unlimited Â