Iran has strongly denied reports of an explosion at its Fordo underground atomic site as "Western propaganda" ahead of stalled nuclear talks with major powers, media reported on Monday.

"No explosion has occurred in the Fordo facility," the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Shamseddin Bar Boroudi, was quoted as saying.

Iran on Monday took a "big step" towards sending astronauts into space by 2020, successfully launching a monkey above the Earth's atmosphere, Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told state television.

Arabic-language channel Al-Alam and other Iranian news agencies said the monkey returned alive after traveling in a capsule to an altitude of 120 kilometers (75 miles) for a sub-orbital flight.

Iran has arrested 11 journalists working for media outlets seen close to the country's marginalized reformists for their alleged cooperation with foreign Persian press, local reports said on Monday.

The arrests come as Iran gears up for its June 14 presidential election, after the result of the previous June 2009 vote triggered protests in Tehran and other cities, sparking a bloody crackdown by the regime on demonstrators.

Israel's foreign ministry said Monday it was "surprised" by Argentina's agreement with Iran to create an independent commission to investigate the 1994 attack on a Buenos Aires Jewish center.

"We were surprised by the news," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told Agence France Presse. "We are waiting to receive full details from the Argentines on what is going on because this subject is obviously directly related to Israel."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said he would seek a broad and stable coalition to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions and the possible transfer of Syrian weapons.

"The entire region is raging and we must be prepared, strong, and determined in the face of any possible development," he told his cabinet ahead of its weekly meeting.

The U.S. ambassador to Syria on Friday criticized Iran's "unhelpful" role in the Syrian conflict and appealed for more from Russia to help the refugees fleeing their war-torn homeland.

"Iran is playing a very unhelpful role in terms of moving Syria toward a political transition that its people demand," Robert Ford told reporters in Ankara, a day after meeting Syrian refugees in a Turkish border town.

Israeli officials said Thursday that military action against Iran needed to stay on the table, as former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned of a crisis over Tehran's nuclear ambitions in the "very foreseeable future".

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Israeli President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the threat of military action was vital to efforts against Iran's nuclear program.

The United States has nothing left to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program except for war, and if it chooses conflict Iran could close a key energy choke-point, its envoy to Baghdad told AFP on Thursday.

Ambassador Hassan Danaie-Far insisted in an interview that Tehran retained the right to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of the world's traded oil passes, in response to any aggression, military or otherwise.

Syria is unlikely to see peace in 2013 as the fighting in the strife-torn country edges closer to civil war, Iran's Ambassador to Baghdad Hassan Danaie-Far told AFP on Thursday.

In a grim assessment of nearly two years of conflict in Iraq's western neighbor, Danaie-Far said he believed that not all rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's forces can be called "terrorists," a term broadly used by the Syrian regime for insurgents.

Russia on Wednesday urged Iran to speed up its answers to the U.N. nuclear watchdog addressing suspicions that Tehran is operating an atomic weapons program.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said world powers had questions "about what may be -- has been or is -- a military component to the nuclear program.