Iran says it won't cease enriching uranium, tests 10 missiles as war exercise starts

The missile testing came a day after Iran began a series of large-scale military maneuvers geared at testing a new defensive doctrine.

"Saegheh, the missile, has a range of between 80 to 250 kilometers," or 50 to 155 miles, the television station said. It said the missile was tested in the Kashan desert, about 250 kilometers southeast of Tehran. Saegheh means lightning in Farsi.

The military did not specify whether the new missile was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran routinely holds war games.

The Iranian military said the maneuvers reflected the current level of tension in the Middle East.

"We have to be prepared against any threat and we should be a role model for other countries," local newspapers quoted an Iranian Army spokesman, General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, as saying last week.

He said the military maneuvers - called "The Blow of Zolfaghar" in reference to a sword that belonged to Imam Ali, one of the holiest figures of Islam for Shiite Muslims - were aimed at "introducing Iran's new defensive doctrine."

State-run television said the missile was built with domestic know-how. Outside experts say much of the Iranian missile technology originated from other countries.

State-run television aired video of 10 missiles being fired from mobile launching pads.

Iran said the exercises were being held in 14 of the country's 30 provinces and could last as long as five weeks.

State-run television also reported that a small military training plane had crashed Sunday.

The plane was not taking part in the military maneuvers, the state media said, stating the crash was due to technical failures.

The broadcast said the plane was making an emergency landing on a highway in northeast Tehran when one of its wings hit a water reservoir. The airplane caught fire and crashed.

The television said the pilot, the only person in the plane, parachuted safely.

Iran will offer a "multifaceted response" to a Western package of incentives aimed at persuading it to suspend uranium enrichment activities, but insisted on Sunday that it would not cease enriching uranium, The Associated Press reported from Tehran.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said a compromise had to be achieved during future negotiations, adding that Iran would submit a formal response on Aug. 22 to a package of Western incentives offered in June that calls on the Islamic republic to suspend, not permanently halt, the enrichment program.

"We won't suspend" uranium enrichment," Asefi told a news conference Sunday. "Everything has to come out of negotiations. Suspension is not on our agenda."

The UN Security Council passed a resolution last month calling for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment by Aug. 31 or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

Iran has rejected the binding resolution as "illegal," saying it had not violated any of its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

/www.iht.com/