In primetime TV bid to convince US to pull out of Iran deal
Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv, that Israel had obtained some 55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs of secret information from an Iranian nuclear weapons programme called “Project Amad”.
However, he did not appear to provide evidence that Iran has violated the 2015 deal, raising questions about whether it would sway international opinion.
The US-led agreement offered Iran relief from crippling sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
Netanyahu furiously fought the deal while Obama was negotiating it, and he has been a leading critic since it was signed. He says it does not provide sufficient safeguards to prevent Iran from reaching nuclear weapons capability.
Netanyahu has found a welcome partner in Trump, who has called the agreement “the worst deal ever”. Trump has signalled he will pull out of the agreement by May 12 unless it is revised, but he faces intense pressure from European allies not to do so.
France and Germany have been negotiating with the State Department on supplemental agreements to address Trump’s concerns without changing the nuclear agreement, which was signed in 2015 by Iran, the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain. In visits to Washington last week, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed to Trump to keep the deal in place.
The French ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud, tweeted that information about past Iranian nuclear activity was in fact an argument in favour of the nuclear deal, not against it.
A German government spokesman said it was vital to keep the independent inspections provided for under the deal, while a British government spokesman defended the accord, saying in a statement: “We have never been naive about Iran and its nuclear intentions.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, belittled Netanyahu in a tweet, saying: “The boy who can’t stop crying wolf is at it again.”
He later tweeted: “Pres. Trump is jumping on a rehash of old allegations already dealt with by the IAEA to ‘nix’ the deal. How convenient. Co-ordinated timing of alleged intelligence revelations by the boy who cries wolf just days before May 12. But Trump’s impetuousness to celebrate blew the cover.”
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister and senior nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, called Netanyahu’s presentation “childish and ridiculous” and said the purported evidence was “fake and fabricated”.