WASHINGTON Ñ U.S. officials said China shipped surface-to-air missiles to Iran in January in a move that alarmed the Bush administration. They said the anti-aircraft missile delivery was the subject of talks last week during the visit by President George Bush to Beijing.

The Washington Times identified the missiles as HQ-7, with a range of more than 12 kilometers. The newspaper said the missile was based on France's Crotale missile system that was reverse-engineered and manufactured by China.

In 2000, China pledged to end missile sales to such clients as Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya. But Beijing has insisted that the agreement only ended the signing of new contracts.

China has sold Iran C-801 and C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles to Iran. In 1998, China pledged to end such sales to Iran. Officials said they can not determine whether Beijing has honored this commitment.

The Bush administration has imposed sanctions on Chinese companies that have sold missiles and weapons of mass destruction components to Iran and Pakistan. Over the last six months, the administration imposed two sets of sanctions on Chinese state-owned companies.

[In a related development, the London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat daily reported on Monday that Iran and Libya have been negotiating a deal for the production of Iranian missiles in Libya. The newspaper identified the missile as Iran's Fatah solid-fuel missile, a project that is being held up because of recent political tensions between Teheran and Tripoli.] In Teheran, Iran reiterated its readiness against any U.S. military attack. The Iranian Joint Staff of the Armed Forces issued a statement that the Islamic republic can repel any foreign threat.

"In the past 23 years, the United States has put numerous pressures on Iran including the economic sanctions, and plotting various conspiracies including military coup and imposing [Iraqi] war on Iran in the 1980s to topple the Islamic Republic," the military statement said. "But all the conspiracies were doomed to failure thanks to national solidarity and the support from Iranian supreme leadership."

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