TEHRAN: Intensifying tensions over its nuclear program and military ambitions, Iran began war games yesterday, test-firing three short-range missiles two days after the United Nations nuclear watchdog disclosed that the Islamic republic was building a second uranium enrichment plant.
The air force commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, said there would also be a test-firing today of the long-range Shahab-3 missile, which Iran says has a range of 1300 to 2000 kilometres and could hit Israel.
The missile manoeuvres come after the US President, Barack Obama, decided earlier this month to scrap a missile defence shield in Europe.
In taking the decision, Mr Obama emphasised the threat of Iran's short- and medium-range missiles instead of the potential danger of longer-range weapons.
The White House said the intelligence community now believed Iran was developing shorter-range missiles ''more rapidly than previously projected'', while progressing more slowly than expected with intercontinental missiles. Israel, most Arab states and parts of Europe, including much of Turkey, are within range of the Shahab-3.
Detail has emerged of how the US plans to tackle Iran over the revelation it is building a second enrichment facility. The Obama Administration will tell Tehran this week that it must open a newly revealed nuclear enrichment site to international inspectors ''within weeks''.
The Administration will also seek full access to the people who put together the clandestine plant.
The US demands, following the news on Friday of the secret plant near the holy city of Qom, set the stage for the next chapter of a diplomatic drama that has toughened the West's posture towards Iran. The first direct negotiations between the US and Iran in 30 years are scheduled to open in Geneva on Thursday. Five other major powers are also involved in the talks.
On Saturday, Iran's nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the International Atomic Energy Agency would be invited to visit the site near Qom that US intelligence agencies estimate was designed to house 3000 centrifuges, enough to produce about one bomb's worth of material a year.
But Dr Salehi offered no timetable for the visit, leaving open the possibility that Iran might remove incriminating evidence from the installation, which is on military land, before the inspectors visit. Iranian officials have said the site is for peaceful purposes.
Dr Salehi said the facility was being constructed as a ''precautionary measure in case of an unwanted incident against our nuclear program''. He estimated that the plant, which was ''not an industrial-scale'' unit, would be operational in two years.
From the White House to Europe, senior officials were pushing to exploit the disclosure of the project as a turning point.
The most urgent issue, current and former officials agree, is immediate access to the tunnel complex that Iran now acknowledges is a uranium enrichment plant under construction.
''This reopens the whole question of the military's involvement in the Iranian nuclear program,'' said David Kay, a nuclear specialist who led the fruitless US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
It is still unclear what incentives the US and its allies may offer Iran if it opens, and ultimately dismantles, its nuclear program.
On Saturday, Mr Obama said in his weekly radio address that he remained committed to building a relationship with Tehran.
''My offer of a serious, meaningful dialogue to resolve this issue remains open,'' he said. ''But Iran must now co-operate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and take action to demonstrate its peaceful intentions.''
In an interview with CNN on Friday, the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, said any possible military action against Iran would only delay Tehran's nuclear program by about one to three years.
''There is no military option that does anything more than buy time,'' Mr Gates said.