NATO Sec Gen Says Iranian Missiles Can Reach Romania And Bulgaria

"Iran also has an extensive missile development program. Statements from Iranian officials declare the range of their modified Shahab-3 missiles to be 2000 kilometers. That will already put Allied countries such as Turkey, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria within reach," Rasmussen said Saturday in a speech at the Brussels Forum 2010 organized by the German Marshall Fund.

Rasmussen reminded that Iran, which has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a Non-Nuclear Weapon State, is developing a nuclear program that it claims is for civilian purposes only.

"However, Iran has gone far beyond what is necessary for a purely civilian program. It has concealed several nuclear facilities from the International Atomic Energy Agency. It has played hide-and-seek with the international community, and it has rejected all offers of cooperation that the US, the EU and others have made," the NATO secretary general said.

Speaking about Iran's nuclear program, Rasmussen said Tehran introduced the SAFIR 2 space launch vehicle in February last year, which is a key stage in the development of missiles of intermediate and intercontinental range.

"If Iran were to complete this development, then the whole of the European continent, as well as all of Russia, would be in range," Rasmussen said, according to the speech published on the NATO website.

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