Iran's army has the capability to attack U.S. interests in the Middle East to a range of 2,000 kilometres, a top general in the elite Revolutionary Guards warned on Monday. "Today the Americans are around our country but this does not mean that they are encircling us. They are encircled themselves and are within our range," General Mohammad Hassan Koussechi told the official IRNA news agency.
"If the United States is saying that they have identified 2,000 targets in Iran, then what is certain is that it is the Americans who are all around Iran and are equally our targets. "Today... we have reached capacities that allow us to hit the enemy at a range of 2,000 kilometres," added Koussechi.
His comments came after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the world should brace for possible war amid mounting tensions over Iran's controversial nuclear program.
Kouchner warned, "We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war." He said that if Tehran possessed an atomic weapon, it would be a "real danger for the whole world."
He added that the current stand-off was "the greatest crisis" of present times.
The minister spoke ahead of a visit to Moscow Monday where Iran's nuclear ambitions will be the main subject of discussion.
Iran's official media has strongly criticized the French comments. "The new occupants of the Elysee (presidential palace) want to copy the White House," the state-owned IRNA news agency said in an editorial.
Accusing French President Nicolas Sarkozy of taking on "an American skin", it said that "the French people will never forget the era when a non-European moved into the Elysee."
"The occupants of the Ellyse have become translators of the White House policies in Europe and have adopted a tone that is even harder, even more inflammatory and more illogical than that of Washington," the Iranian editorial read.
© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
News
