TEHRAN, May 11, (Agencies): Iran’s military warned off a US reconnaissance aircraft trying to approach Iranian naval manoeuvres, the semi-official Fars News Agency said on Tuesday.
The incident involving the two old adversaries happened on Monday, it quoted the armed forces chief as saying.
Iran’s navy last week launched eight days of exercises in the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, a region crucial for global oil supplies.
“A US reconnaissance aircraft which had intended to approach our operational war games left ... upon the timely warning of our air defence forces,” Fars quoted armed forces commander Ataollah Salehi as saying.
He was speaking to reporters as the military test-fired two surface-to-sea missiles in the Gulf of Oman, it added.
There was no immediate US comment on the report.

Pieter Wezeman, a researcher on military issues at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), said similar incidents had happened before and did not necessarily signal an escalation in tension.
“To me it sounds like standard behaviour from both sides,” he said by telephone from the Swedish capital. “I recall a number of them over the years.”
Earlier this month, Iran revealed that one of its military planes had photographed a US aircraft carrier, suggesting that the US ship’s crew had objected to the Iranian action.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said last week Iran was challenging US naval power in the Middle East with an array of offensive and defensive weapons.
The US military is present in most Gulf Arab countries and has expanded land- and sea-based missile defence systems in and around the Gulf during a protracted nuclear stand-off with Iran.
Iran’s manoeuvres coincide with rising tension between Iran and the West over Tehran’s uranium enrichment programme. Western officials suspect it is aimed at developing nuclear weapons capacity. Iran says it is only for electricity generation.

The United States is lobbying for a fourth round of UN sanctions on the Islamic state over its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear activities and open up to UN inspections.
Iran often announces advances in its military capabilities and tests weaponry in an apparent attempt to show its readiness for any strikes by Israel or the United States.
Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, has described Iran’s nuclear programme as a threat to its existence and has not ruled out military action.
In exercises held in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz last month, official media said the elite Revolutionary Guards tested missiles and a new speedboat capable of destroying enemy ships.
Iran, a predominantly Shi’ite Muslim state, has said it would respond to any attack by targeting US interests in the region and Israel, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz.
About 40 percent of the world’s traded oil leaves the Gulf region through the strategic narrows.
Salehi said: “It’s past the epoch when America would change the regime in a country by just dispatching a warship.”
Iran is “very serious about the protection of its interests”, the armed forces chief added.

Talks
Iran is willing to hold talks with the European Union’s foreign policy chief over its disputed nuclear activities, a senior official said on Tuesday, after the bloc’s top diplomat spoke of new sanctions against Tehran.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Monday extra sanctions could be adopted quickly, but that the EU was open to more talks with Iran if it showed it really wanted them.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Iran was ready for talks with Ashton, adding that “a time and venue for such a meeting had not been set yet”.
“(Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed) Jalili and Ashton could meet in Turkey,” Mehmanparast told a weekly news conference. “We do not see a problem with that.”
Western diplomats have said mid-June is a target deadline for getting a fourth round of UN sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear programme, which it says is to generate electricity and not build bombs as the West fears.
Iran has welcomed Turkish and Brazilian mediation efforts to resolve the nuclear dispute, aimed at reviving a stalled fuel deal with major powers.
The deal is seen as a way to remove much of Iran’s low-enriched uranium (LEU) stockpile to minimise the risk of this being used for atomic bombs, providing Iran with specially processed fuel to keep its research reactor running.

The deal broke down over Iran’s insistence on doing the swap only on its territory, rather than shipping its LEU abroad in advance, and in smaller, phased amounts, meaning no significant cut in a stockpile which grows day by day.
Turkey and Brazil, both non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, are opposed to further sanctions against Iran.
But Mehmanparast said Iran had no intention to change its view over the venue for a fuel swap.
“We are ready to resolve the (nuclear) issue through talks ... New formulas have been raised about the exchange of fuel in our talks with Turkey and Brazil,” Mehmanparast said.
“The new formula does not cover the venue of fuel exchange. We have always said the swap should take place inside Iran.”
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will travel to Iran on May 16, Mehmanparast said.
“They will discuss the nuclear issue and the nuclear fuel deal with Iranian authorities.”

Hikers
The mothers of three US citizens detained almost 10 months in Iran are excited at Tehran’s decision to allow them to visit and will fly “in a second” once their visas arrive, one of them told AFP Tuesday.
“We are very excited about this, it is getting closer to reality for us,” Nora Shourd, the mother of detained 31-year-old Sarah Shourd, told AFP.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to see them soon. When we get our visas we’re going to be over there in a second, as quickly as we can get there.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said late Monday that the mothers of the three young Americans, jailed since July 2009 for “illegal entry” into Iran, would be granted visas for “humanitarian” reasons.

Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, 27, and Josh Fattal, 27, were detained after straying across Iran’s border during what they said was a hiking trip in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
Iran initially accused them of spying, but Mottaki said in December that they faced charges of entering the country illegally. Their detention has turned into another irritant in already tense US-Iranian relations.
“Prime Minister Mottaki is saying that visas have been issued. We are very excited about this, it is getting closer to reality for us,” Nora Shourd said.
“We don’t have the visas in our hands yet but we do have his guarantee that they have been issued. It is just a matter for us of getting our visas in our hands.”
Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, who was detained in Iran from June to October, says a revolutionary court sentenced him this week to 13 years and six months behind bars plus 74 lashes.
Canadian-Iranian Bahari was among the scores of journalists and reformist politicians arrested following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in JUne last year, which triggered mass protests in Iran and charges of voter fraud.

“A member of my family went to the court just this morning and was told of the judgment, such as it was: a reminder that this is a regime that deals in brutal symbols that make sense only to its own,” Bahari wrote Monday on Newsweek’s website.
He noted that Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court handed down the sentence “without bothering to inform me or my lawyers.”
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast refused to confirm or deny the reported sentence and judiciary officials could not be reached for comment.
On the day Bahari was released from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison last year, the resident judge told him that he faced 11 charges. But the sentencing only contained six charges.
“So in a sense, as I was reminded repeatedly during almost four months of interrogation and torture, I was benefiting from ‘the Islamic kindness’ of the ‘holy’ government of the Islamic Republic when I got out,” Bahari wrote dryly.