Iran defiant as war games begin

Iran maintained its defiance on Sunday, launching war games with short-range missile tests and warning that the uproar over its second uranium enrichment plant would undermine this week’s talks with world powers.

Official media reported that the three-day manoeuvres by the elite Revolutionary Guard would also include test-firing the longer-range Shahab 3 missile that raise concerns in the west.
Iran says the missile, which has been tested in the past, has a range of 2,000km, putting within its reach Israel and US bases in the Gulf.

The war games come at a time of rising international furore over Iran’s nuclear programme and growing suspicions about Tehran’s claims that its nuclear activities are purely peaceful.
Iran admitted last week that it had been building a second enrichment plant. Western governments seized upon the move as further evidence that Tehran was in breach of United Nations obligations.

Western intelligence agencies knew about the plant, and officials say they were about to expose it, forcing Iran to come clean.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the atomic energy agency, told state television on Saturday that the second plant’s construction was a reaction to threats issued against the main uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, which would be high on the list of targets in the event of any military strike on Iran’s facilities.

US officials say the plant is concealed in an underground tunnel complex on a Revolutionary Guard base and suggest that it is designed to process weapons-grade uranium rather than the low-enrichment uranium for nuclear fuel being produced at Natanz.
In a bid to lower tensions, Iran said that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency could visit the site.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said “it is always welcome when Iran makes a decision to comply with the international rules and regulations, particularly with respect to the IAEA”.
She was hopeful that, in preparing for the October 1 meeting with world powers, Iran “comes and shares with all of us what they are willing to do and give us a timetable on which they are willing to proceed”.

The meeting this week is the first in more than a year between Iran and the six nation group seeking to curb its nuclear ambitions – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.

The controversy over the second nuclear plant has complicated Iran’s attempts to broaden the talks to a range of other, non-nuclear issues. Indeed, its leaders have been warning that they consider the nuclear file to be “closed” and therefore no longer subject to negotiations.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, insisted that it was the western reaction to the new facility that would “have a negative impact” on this week’s negotiations.

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