Iran said on Monday it had launched a live monkey into space, seeking to show off missile systems that have alarmed the West because the technology could potentially be used to deliver a nuclear warhead.

The Iranian Defense Ministry announced the launch as world powers sought to agree a date and venue with Iran for resuming talks to resolve a standoff with the West over Tehran's nuclear program.

The powers have proposed new talks in February, a spokesman for the EU's foreign policy chief said on Monday, hours after Russia urged all concerned to "stop behaving like children" and commit to a meeting.

The Iranian Defense Ministry said the space launch of the monkey coincided "with the days of" the Prophet Mohammad's birthday, which was last week, but gave no date, according to the official news agency IRNA.

The small gray monkey was pictured strapped into a padded seat and being loaded into the Kavoshgar rocket dubbed "Pishgam" (Pioneer) which reached a height of more than 120 kilometers.

"This shipment returned safely to Earth with the anticipated speed along with the live organism," Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told the Fars news agency. "The launch of Kavoshgar and its retrieval is the first step towards sending humans into space."

In Washington, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Monday she could not confirm whether Iran had successfully sent a monkey into space or conducted any launch at all, saying that if it had done so "it's a serious concern."

Nuland said such a launch would violate Security Council Resolution 1929, which bars Iran from "any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology."

The West worries that long-range ballistic technology used to propel Iranian satellites into orbit could be put to use dispatching nuclear warheads.

Bruno Gruselle of France's Foundation for Strategic Research said that if the monkey launch report were true it would suggest a "quite significant" engineering feat by Iran.

"If you are able to protect a vehicle of this sort from re-entry, then you can protect a military warhead and make it survive the high pressures of re-entering," Gruselle said. The launch is similar to sending up a satellite weighing some 2,000 kilograms, he said. Success would suggest a capacity to deploy a surface-to-surface missile with a range of a few thousand kilometers.

Reuters