Senior Iranian officials further raised tensions with the West on Saturday, implicitly warning that Tehran would use missiles to strike Israel or Western forces stationed in the Gulf if attacked.
The statements came as world leaders met at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, with the Middle East high on the agenda. The hardline Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has pressed ahead with a controversial nuclear programme since his election last year.
”The world knows Iran has a ballistic missile power with a range of 2 000km,” General Yahya Rahim Safavi said on state-run television. ”We have no intention to invade any country [but] we will take effective defence measures if attacked.”
Though world leaders agreed that strong measures were necessary to prevent Iran gaining nuclear weapon capacity, there was little consensus this weekend as to what those measures should be. Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, on Saturday conceded that Britain and the US were divided over using military force.
Responding to comments by US politicians stressing the ”leverage” the military option allowed, Straw said such action was not under discussion. ”I understand that’s the American position. Our position is different … There isn’t a military option. And no one is talking about it.”
Britain, along with most EU states, has been pursuing a policy of ”engagement” with the Iranians. Straw was speaking ahead of talks with Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Tehran’s continuing defiance of the international pressure has led to growing pressure to refer Iran to the UN security council. Such calls became more urgent after Iran said it was resuming work at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility. Tehran has always said the facility is to provide energy but Straw said there had to be ”objective guarantees” that their nuclear power programme could not lead to a nuclear weapons capability because of their ”unquestionable record of deceit in the past”.
Moscow has suggested that uranium for Iranian reactors could be prepared in Russia, a process that would in theory ensure that the fuel is not enriched to a level that would permit military use. Tehran claims its nuclear programme is designed only for civilian purposes.
Britain is expected to lead calls for UN censure of Iran at an emergency meeting in Vienna this week. The UK is backed by France, Germany and the US. Iran has sought to split the international community, offering economic incentives to India, China and Russia, all of which have strong commercial links with the oil-rich state.
For the moment, Iran’s most powerful weapon is the Shahab-3 missile, which can strike more than 2 000km from their launch site, putting Israel and American forces in the Middle East in easy range. The Revolutionary Guard was equipped with the missiles in July 2003.
”We are producing these missiles and don’t need foreign technology for that,” Safavi said pointedly in his speech to the nation. Iran announced last year that it had developed solid-fuel technology for missiles, a major breakthrough that increases their accuracy.
Safavi also accused US and British intelligence services of provoking unrest in south-west Iran and providing bomb materials to Iranian dissidents. He said the US and Britain were behind bombings on 21January that killed at least nine people in Ahvaz, near the southern border with Iraq, where 8 500 British soldiers are based around Basra.
”Foreign forces based in Iraq, especially southern Iraq, direct Iranian agents and give them bomb materials,” he said. Iran was monitoring dissidents and their alleged links with the US and British forces.
”We are aware of their meetings in Kuwait and Iraq,” he said. ”We warn them [the US and Britain], especially the MI6 and CIA, that they refrain from interfering in Iran’s affairs.” – Guardian Unlimited Â