Israel put its navy on high alert and said it would respond immediately to any "provocation" as two Iranian warships sailed through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean on Tuesday.

The Iranian vessels entered the southeastern Mediterranean after going up the canal for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, reportedly en route for Syria, in a move taking them past Israeli territorial waters.

Suez Canal officials confirmed the patrol frigate Alvand and support ship Kharg had completed the crossing after entering the narrow waterway at dawn.

A senior Israeli security source told AFP Israel would "not initiate any action" against the Iranian vessels, but if the Iranians deviated in any way that could be considered "a provocation" there would be an "immediate Israeli response."

The Israeli navy immediately went on high alert and the troops were briefed on how to respond in such an event, he said.

The 1,500-tonne Alvand is normally armed with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, while the larger 33,000-tonne Kharg has a crew of 250 and facilities for up to three helicopters, Iran's official Fars news agency has said.

Both ships were built in Britain during the 1970s for Iran, which ordered them before the Islamic revolution.

Neither ship is carrying chemical or nuclear material, Egypt's state-run MENA news agency has reported.

Their passage into the eastern Mediterranean comes as the Arab world and the Middle East grapples with a vast wave of unrest and protests that is radically changing the political landscape, and leaving Israel increasingly concerned about its security.

"We are talking about an unprecedented Iranian military presence in the Mediterranean, and that is a provocation to which the international community must react firmly," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP earlier on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the ships' arrival in the region as an Iranian power play, just days after his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, branded their voyage "a provocation."

"Today we are witnessing the instability of the region in which we live and in which Iran is trying to profit by extending its influence by dispatching two warships to cross the Suez Canal," he said.

"Israel views with gravity this Iranian initiative," his office quoted him as saying.

Animosity between Iran and Israel has grown under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly spoken of the Jewish state's demise.

Israel also accuses Tehran of arming and funding Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Israel, which has the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear arsenal, suspects Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under cover of a civilian nuclear programme.

Tehran denies that charge and has in turn accused Israel of trying to sabotage its nuclear programme and kill its nuclear scientists.

Israel has backed a US policy tougher UN sanctions against Iran while remaining open to dialogue.

But it has refused to rule out a resort to military action to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapons capability.

earlier related report
Germany reacts to criticism of Iran trip
Berlin (UPI) Feb 22, 2011 - German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has defended himself against criticism that he met with Iranian hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to free two German journalists.

"Whoever criticizes this trip should tell that to the two who are now back in Germany," he said.

Westerwelle Saturday flew to Iran to bring home two German journalists who had been sitting in an Iranian prison for several months. They were arrested last October while interviewing the son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, whose death-by-stoning sentence for an adultery conviction drew international condemnation last summer.

The affair had further undermined Germany's relations with Iran, which is shunned by the West for its controversial nuclear program and its crackdown on the domestic opposition.

After months of negotiations, Tehran last week indicated that the pair, reporter Marcus Hellwig and photographer Jens Koch, might be released on the condition that Westerwelle meet with Ahmadinejad. It was the first such bilateral encounter between the Iranian president and a German foreign minister.

Afterward, Westerwelle, Hellwig and Koch boarded the Bundeswehr plane and flew to Germany, where they were greeted by the journalists' families who had feared for their relatives for months.

The German opposition and exiled Iranians in Europe condemned the meeting as an unnecessary gesture to the Iranian regime at a time when it's coming under pressure from protesters.

"This trip is nothing but pinning hope on the bankrupt and utterly failed policy of appeasement," the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exiled Iranian opposition group, said in a statement e-mailed Saturday to reporters.

It said Westerwelle's meeting with Ahmadinejad took place "only a few days after the bloody crackdown" on Iranian anti-government protesters, and served "only (to) embolden the regime to further suppress Iranian people."

And indeed, after Westerwelle had departed, the regime in Tehran tried to use the meeting to its advantage.

The New York Times quoted Iranian Foreign Ministry official Hassan Qashqavi as saying on Sunday that Westerwelle's visit "proved the failure of European Union policy on Iran."

Brussels has in the past asked EU foreign ministers not to visit Iran. "The current visit puts an end to such a decision," Qashqavi is quoted as saying.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was informed about the trip but didn't know that it would include a meeting with Ahmadinejad, her spokesman said Monday.

"In that kind of a situation it is always a question of weighing the pros and cons," spokesman Steffen Seibert said at a regular news conference in Berlin. "Our international partners are still absolutely clear that our opinion of Iran hasn't changed at all. ... We're absolutely clear about the fact that the situation in Iran concerning human rights and political freedoms is unacceptably bad."

He added that Merkel was happy with the outcome of the trip.