“These exercises aim to reinforce the integrated abilities of the country's anti-air defenses,” said a statement from the Katem-ol-Anbia military air base coordinating Iran's anti-air and ballistic missile systems.

Missiles, anti-aircraft artillery, radars and warplanes were being deployed, it said.

The declaration, reported by the official news agency IRNA, came as officials from the UN nuclear watchdog were holding talks in Tehran on Iran's suspect nuclear program which has unsettled the West and Israel.

It also coincided with increasing speculation that Israel was mulling air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

“These maneuvers aim to reinforce the coordination between the military and the Revolutionary Guards for a total coverage of the country's sensitive facilities, especially nuclear sites,” the statement said.

The exercises, named “Sarollah,” covered a zone of 190,000 square kilometers in southern Iran, it said.

The UN nuclear inspectors two-day visit to Tehran on Monday sought to meet Iranian nuclear scientists and visit a key military facility as they try to gauge allegations that Iran is pushing toward making an atomic weapon.

The trip is the second in less than a month by the International Atomic Energy Agency team, reflecting growing concerns over alleged weapons experiments — something Iran has so far both denied and refused to discuss.

Herman Nackaerts, a senior UN nuclear official, said in Vienna before the team departed on Sunday that he hoped for progress in the talks but his careful choice of words suggested little expectation the meeting will be successful.

The West suspects Iran's nuclear program is geared toward making weapons, a charge Iran denies, insisting it's for peaceful purposes only, such as power generation.

Iran's state radio said Monday the inspectors hope to meet Iranian nuclear scientists and visit the Parchin military complex. The report said the IAEA had requested to visit Parchin, an Iranian military base and conventional weapons development facility outside of Tehran. The site has also been suspected of housing a secret underground facility used for Iran's nuclear program, a claim denied by Iranian authorities.

The IAEA visit comes as Iran last week announced what it described as key advancements in its nuclear program, inserting the first domestically made fuel rod into a research reactor in Tehran and installing a new generation of Iranian-made centrifuges at the country's main uranium enrichment facility in the central town of Natanz.

Beyond concerns about the purported weapons work, Washington and its allies want Iran to halt uranium enrichment, which they believe could eventually lead to weapons-grade material and the production of nuclear weapons. Iran has been enriching uranium up to 20 percent, while uranium enriched to more than 90 percent can be used for a nuclear warhead.

Iran has denied alleged weapons experiments for nearly four years, saying they are based on “fabricated documents” provided by a “few arrogant countries” — a phrase authorities in Iran often use to refer to the US and its allies.