Iran raises tension by threatening pre-emptive action

Deputy chief of Iranian armed forces says regime 'will act without waiting for enemies' actions' if national interests are put at risk
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, with Mohammad Hejazi, the deputy head of the Islamic republic’s armed forces. Photograph: Hasan Sarbakhshian/AP

Iran has stepped up its rhetoric with the west by warning that it could launch pre-emptive action if its enemies put the regime's national interest at risk, raising the stakes over sensitive nuclear talks in Tehran.

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency quoted the deputy head of the Islamic republic's armed forces, Mohammad Hejazi, as saying: "Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran's national interests, and want to decide to do that, we will act without waiting for their actions."

Hejazi's warning comes amid increasing fears of an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Iran's defence minister, Ahmad Vahidi, said his country intended to boost its presence in international waters, the regime's English-language TV channel, Press TV, reported.

Last week, two Iranian naval ships sailed through the Suez canal in a move closely watched by the US and Israel.

In recent weeks, Iran has adopted a policy of retaliatory actions against western economic sanctions or threats of an Israeli pre-emptive strike, while expressing readiness for nuclear talks.

A team of UN nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was reported to have completed its second visit to Tehran within a month, ahead of a widely-anticipated report that could set the scene for either a new round of diplomacy or an escalation of tension. The Iranian student news agency, ISNA, quoted Iran's ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna, Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh, as saying that the "negotiations will continue in the future".

The team, under the agency's deputy director general, Herman Nackaerts, is due to return to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna and report back on Tehran's cooperation by the end of the week. At the outset of the two-day trip to Tehran, Nackaerts had said he was seeking "concrete results", and diplomats in Vienna said that he would seek IAEA access to at least one sensitive military site and ask to interview Iranian scientists who took part in research the IAEA believe may have been aimed at developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran's response is not yet clear, though the foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, claimed on Tuesday that the IAEA team had no plans to inspect the country's nuclear facilities.

"The titles of the members of the visiting delegation is not inspectors. This is an expert delegation. The purpose of visit is not inspection," Mehmanparast said. "The aim is to negotiate about co-operation between Iran and the agency and to set a framework for a continuation of the talks."

The wording of the IAEA report could have a significant influence on whether there is a new round of talks between a six-nation group of major powers, and Tehran, on the future of the Iranian nuclear programme. The stakes behind the diplomacy are exceptionally high at a time when the Israeli government is reportedly debated on whether to carry out air strikes in a bid to set back what it portrays as an Iranian project to build a nuclear arsenal and challenge its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East.

Last week, Iran claimed to have built faster uranium enrichment centrifuges and had loaded domestically made fuel plates into a reactor in defiance of the west.

In recent years, Iran's nuclear programme has experienced a series of dramatic setbacks: stuxnet, a computer worm believed to have been designed by opponents of the regime, caused damage to its nuclear programme, and four nuclear scientists have been assassinated in the past two years. Another scientist who was wounded in an assassination attempt was later promoted to become the country's nuclear chief.

Tensions have escalated since a report by the IAEA in November led to an oil embargo against Iran by the US and its European allies. In response to western sanctions, which have recently begun to bite, Iran has resorted to sabre-rattling and threats of closing the Strait of Hormuz.


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