Iran has test-fired a new generation of surface-to-surface missiles, state television reported yesterday.
Iran’s armed forces have staged frequent maneuvers in recent months, coinciding with speculation of possible US or Israeli strikes against the Islamic Republic over its disputed nuclear ambitions.
The reports came a day after Iranian media said the elite Revolutionary Guards had tested a new missile, named Samen, near the Iraqi border.
“Iran successfully test-fires new generation of ground-to-ground missiles,” state television said in a scrolling headline.
Another Iranian channel, the English-language Press TV, said the missile, named Sejil, was of a type that used combined solid fuel and described it as a “deterrent.”
“Launch aimed at clarifying Iran’s conventional missile aims,” Press TV said in a scrolling headline.
The Press TV newscaster said the missile had two stages and showed the Islamic state’s capability to “defend its soil.”
The US and its Western allies suspect Iran is seeking to build atomic bombs, a charge Tehran denies.
Iran has said it would respond to any attack on its territory by targeting US interests and Washington’s ally Israel, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for world oil supplies.
Meanwhile, senior diplomats from six world powers are to meet this week to discuss stalled efforts to impose new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, US officials said on Tuesday.
Today’s meeting in Paris will bring together high-level foreign ministry officials from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the UK, China, France, Russia and the US — and Germany, the officials said. The US will be represented by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, they said.
Burns currently is in Moscow for talks with senior Russian officials on Iran and other matters, including Russia’s war with Georgia and US plans for a missile shield in Europe that have damaged ties between the former Cold War foes, the officials said.
Burns, the third-ranking official in the US State Department, is the most senior official to visit Russia since the war in Georgia in August, although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov twice since then, most recently over the weekend in Egypt.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because neither Burns’ travel nor the meeting in Paris has been formally announced.
However, it does not appear likely that such talks, if they should occur, would yield results, especially while the transition from the Bush administration to president-elect Barack Obama’s team is in progress, the official said.
Obama has proposed a different approach on Iran, including possible direct talks with its leaders, while insisting it remains a threat and must not be allowed to develop nuclear arms.
Iran initially welcomed Obama’s election and hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad congratulated him on his win, the first time an Iranian leader has offered such wishes to a US president-elect since the 1979 Islamic Revolution when relations between Washington and Tehran were severed.
But it has since taken a tougher line, saying the world needs more than cosmetic changes in American foreign policy.
Even before the election, Iran’s supreme leader said that his country’s hatred for the US runs deep, and differences between the two nations go beyond a “few political issues.” On Tuesday, US President George W. Bush signed an order extending for one year the US “national emergency” with respect to Iran due to the continued “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States constituted by the situation in Iran.”
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