Israel says Iran harboring secret atomic warehouse

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran on Thursday of keeping a “secret atomic warehouse” just outside its capital, despite the 2015 deal with world powers that was meant to keep it from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Holding up a poster-board map of an area near Tehran as he spoke at the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu told world leaders that Iranian officials have been keeping up to 300 tons of nuclear equipment and material in a walled, unremarkable-looking property near a rugcleaning operation.

Iranian state media called the announcement “ridiculous” and an “illusion.”

Netanyahu’s disclosure — which he presented as a big reveal on the international community’s biggest stage — came four months after Israel announced the existence of what it said was a “half-ton” of Iranian nuclear documents obtained by Israeli intelligence in the Shourabad neighborhood near Tehran.

Israel said the cache proved that Iranian leaders covered up their nuclear weapons program before signing the nuclear agreement. Iran hasn’t acknowledged the alleged seizure.

“You have to ask yourself a question: why did Iran keep a secret atomic archive and a secret atomic warehouse?” Netanyahu asked. “What Iran hides, Israel will find.”

Netanyahu didn’t specify what the material and equipment was, and it was not immediately clear whether it proved to be a violation of the nuclear deal.

Netanyahu also said Iranian officials had been clearing some radioactive material out of the site, which sits a short distance from Shourabad, and “spread it around Tehran.”

He then even suggested that residents of the capital might want to buy Geiger counters.

In referring to Netanyahu’s statements as “ridiculous,” the Iranian state TV report said the country is committed to nonproliferation and Iran’s nuclear program is under surveillance of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The website of state TV briefly reported the Netanyahu accusation and called it an “illusion.”

Iran’s state-run, Englishlanguage Press TV channel carried Netanyahu’s remarks live but cut away after he made the allegation about the nuclear warehouse.

The 2015 Iran nuclear deal came after years of Western sanctions over Iran’s contested atomic program. The West long has feared it could be used to build nuclear bombs. Iran long has denied seeking atomic weapons.

Under terms of the deal, Iran is allowed to keep documents and other research. The deal strictly limits how many centrifuges — important equipment for making enriched uranium that can be used in nuclear power plants or in weapons — Iran can use and how large of a lowenriched uranium stockpile the country can keep.