WASHINGTON  - Democrat Barack Obama Wednesday called for aggressive diplomacy with Iran while Republican John McCain warned against making any concessions, as Tehran's missile tests jolted the White House race. The presidential rivals used Iran's test of a missile capable of reaching Israel to sketch sharply divergent approaches on foreign policy. Senator Obama said Iran "must suffer threats of economic sanctions with direct diplomacy opening up channels of communication so we avoid provocation, but we give strong incentives for the Iranians to change their behaviour." "We have to have a kind of aggressive diplomacy which unfortunately has been absent over the last several years," Obama said in an interview with CNN. "Part of the problem that we've got right now is that we've been basically farming out the diplomatic activity to the Europeans. We've got to be actively engaged," Obama said. Senator McCain issued a statement following the tests implicitly criticising Obama's engagement strategy, which Republicans argue is naive and dangerous. "Working with our European and regional allies is the best way to meet the threat posed by Iran, not unilateral concessions that undermine multilateral diplomacy," McCain said. "Iran's most recent missile tests demonstrate again the dangers it poses to its neighbours and to the wider region, especially Israel," McCain said. Meanwhile, major European powers Britain, France and Germany also condemned the test at a time when world powers are seeking to resolve a long-running dispute with Iran over the Islamic republic's contested nuclear programme. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman said Israel was not seeking war. "Israel seeks neither conflict nor hostilities with Iran, but no one in the international community should remain indifferent to Iran's nuclear programme and Iran's ballistic missile programme," Mark Regev said. Germany said it was concerned about the latest test and urged Tehran to stop its "sabre-rattling". Government spokesman Thomas Steg noted that top world powers dealing with Iran's nuclear programme had made a "gesture of good will" by offering incentives last month in return for Iran suspending uranium enrichment activities. "It is regrettable that Iran has responded to this gesture of the international community with a bad-will gesture," he said. France warned that the test would do nothing to appease global concerns about Tehran's nuclear ambitions. "These missile tests can only reinforce the concerns of the international community at a time when Iran is separately developing a nuclear programme," foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told a press conference. Britain described the test-firing as "unwelcome" and mistimed. "We have to question why does Iran need such long-range missiles?" the Foreign Office said in a statement. "What we have seen just underlines the need for Iran to comply with its international obligations on the nuclear issue."