Iran, US flex muscles on nuclear tensions

3 Jul 2012, 9:35 pm   -   Source: AAP

Iran and the United States have underlined their military readiness for conflict should faltering diplomacy over Tehran's atomic activities fail.

Iran and the United States have underlined their military readiness for conflict should faltering diplomacy over Tehran's atomic activities fail, as tensions rose over new sanctions.

Iran said it successfully fired several dozen missiles - including a medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic weapon - in war games in its central desert region designed to show its capacity for counter-attack.

US officials, meanwhile, detailed a quiet US military build-up in the Gulf region that includes the deployment of warships and F-22 stealth fighter jets.

The belligerent posturing came on the day technical experts from Iran and from world powers, including the United States, were due to meet in Istanbul in the latest round of talks.

The negotiations have been downgraded from a senior political level after three previous rounds this year that failed to bridge vast differences held by each side.

Iran refuses to bow to US and European demands that it curb its sensitive uranium enrichment under the pressure of punishing economic sanctions that were ramped up last week to their most severe level so far.

"The sanctions imposed against our country are the harshest and strongest ever imposed. If the enemies think they can weaken Iran with these sanctions, they are wrong," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Tehran is demanding its "right" to enrichment be recognised and the "hostile" sanctions be eased for the talks to progress.

It rejects foreign suspicions that it is seeking a nuclear weapons "break-out" capability.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast accused some countries in the so-called P5+1 group (comprising the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, plus Germany) of dragging out the talks and perhaps wanting them to fail.

"Many people are starting to conclude that maybe there are specific goals in dragging out the talks and preventing their success. One option is that perhaps there is a link with the US (presidential) election" in November, he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, speaking on Monday to the ISNA news agency, said that, should the talks collapse, "the other alternative is confrontation".

Some 120 MPs in Iran's 290-seat parliament have also signed on to a draft bill calling for the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the oil-rich Gulf to be closed to oil tankers headed to Europe in retaliation for an EU embargo on Iranian crude that came into effect on Sunday.

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