Claim secret nuclear site in Iran
NEW YORK: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday described what he said was a secret atomic warehouse in Teheran and accused Europe of appeasing Iran.
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, he showed an aerial photograph of the Iranian capital marked with a red arrow and pointed to what he said was a previously secret warehouse holding nuclearrelated material.
He argued this showed Iran still sought to obtain nuclear weapons, despite its 2015 agreement with world powers to curb its programme in exchange for the loosening of sanctions. He said the site contained some 15kg of radioactive material that had since been moved, and called on the UN atomic agency to inspect the location immediately with Geiger counters.
‘‘I am disclosing for the first time that Iran has another secret facility in Teheran, a secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and materiel from Iran’s secret nuclear programme,’’ he said.
In April, Netanyahu presented what he said was evidence of a secret archive of documents related to Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons programme at a different site in Teheran.
He said Israeli agents removed vast amounts of documents from that site. At the time, Iran said the documents were fake.
The world would dismiss Netanyahu’s claims, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said, according to Fars News.
‘‘The world will only laugh loudly at this type of false, meaningless and unnecessary speech and false shows,’’ he said.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said there should be more scrutiny on Israel’s nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly said Teheran is abiding by its commitments. France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia have stayed in the pact, and this week discussed a barter mechanism they hope may allow Iran to circumvent the US measures.
Netanyahu criticised Europe for doing so in unusually harsh language.
‘‘While the United States is confronting Iran with new sanctions, Europe and others are appeasing Iran by trying to help it bypass those new sanctions,’’ he said.
A US intelligence official called Netanyahu’s comments ‘‘somewhat misleading’’.
‘‘First, we have known about this facility for some time, and it’s full of file cabinets and paper, not aluminium tubes for centrifuges, and second, so far as anyone knows, there is nothing in it that would allow Iran to break out of the [nuclear deal] any faster than it otherwise could.’’