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The reported tests of the liquid-fueled Shahab-3 and the solid-fueled Sejil-2 missiles were not the first, but they came only days after President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain used the disclosure of a previously secret nuclear plant in Iran to threaten Tehran with a stronger response to its efforts to enrich uranium, including harsher economic sanctions.
On Sunday, Iran also test-fired three short-range missiles, with a range of 90 to 125 miles, according to state-run television.
The tests were reported less than two weeks after President Obama canceled former President George W. Bush’s plans to station a radar facility in the Czech Republic and 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland to create a so-called shield against potential missile attacks from Iran. Instead, he plans to deploy smaller SM-3 interceptors by 2011, first aboard ships and later in Europe, possibly even in Poland or the Czech Republic.
Earlier this month, administration officials cited what they called accumulating evidence that Iran had made more progress than anticipated in building short- and medium-range missiles that could threaten Israel and Europe than it had in developing the intercontinental missiles that the Bush system was more suited to counter.
A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry told a news conference that the latest missile tests had been planned for some time and were not linked to the nuclear dispute, the state-run English-language Press TV reported.
Nonetheless, the tests came days before the first direct contact in decades between the United States and Iran at international talks in Geneva, set for Thursday. Analysts said the launchings may have been intended to give Iranian negotiators the appearance of a stronger hand at the talks.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but many in the West say it is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon.
Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, was asked at a European defense ministers’ meeting in Sweden on Monday if he was concerned about the missile tests.
“Everything that is done in that context is a concern,” he said, adding that the dispute over Iran’s newly disclosed second enrichment facility “has to be resolved immediately” with the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.
The missile tests on Monday were part of an effort to improve Iran’s defenses, Press TV said.
Television stations broadcast video of a missile being launched from what appeared to be desert terrain, with a plume of flame as it streaked upward, leaving a white trail as it crossed the sky.
Press TV said the Shahab-3 and Sejil-2 had been fired Monday as the third part of a military exercise named The Great Prophet IV. It said an “optimized” Shahab-3 missile had a range of 800 to 1,250 miles, while the Sejil was a two-stage missile powered by solid fuel. Parts of western Iran lie some 650 miles from Tel Aviv.
“Both of the projectiles accurately hit their designated targets,” Press TV said, without giving details of where the missiles landed.
The maneuvers included tests of missiles with shorter ranges.
“Several models of medium-range Shahab-1 and Shahab-2 missiles were tested during the military drill on Sunday night,” Press TV said on its Web site.
It quoted the Air Force commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, as saying Shahab-2 missiles could hit targets between 200 miles and 450 miles from their launch sites.
There was no indication whether the testing of longer-range missiles — often taken in the West as a sign of potential hostile intent by Iran — was timed to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. They had, however, been expected as part of the missile tests.
In July 2008 the Revolutionary Guards test-fired nine missiles, including at least one that the government in Tehran described as having the range to reach Israel.
Iran unveiled the Sejil missile in a test-firing last November and claimed also to have tested an updated Sejil-2 in May.
The Sejil-2 is a more sophisticated missile than the Shahab-3, although it has a similar range. Iran first acquired the liquid-fueled Shahab-3 from North Korea. The Sejil-2, experts said, can be stored in mountains, transported, reassembled and fired on shorter notice, and thus could be harder for Israel or other nations to target.
Concern about Iranian hostility toward Israel is matched by frequent speculation that Israel might launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than allow Tehran to develop nuclear weapons. But, last weekend, Israeli officials expressed satisfaction at the growing international pressure on Tehran after the revelation that Iran had been building an undeclared uranium enrichment facility.
The Obama administration is scrambling to assemble a package of harsher economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program that could include a cutoff of investments to the country’s oil and gas industry and restrictions on many more Iranian banks than those currently blacklisted, senior administration officials said Sunday.
Hassan Qashqavi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Monday that the second enrichment facility was in a village called Fordo, about 115 miles south of Tehran, and 60 miles from Natanz, the site of Iran’s known enrichment plant, The Associated Press reported. That would place it — as United States officials have said — close to the holy city of Qum
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