Israel claims Iran nuclear evidence
WORLD: Israel has unveiled a “half-ton” of Iranian nuclear documents which it claims prove that Tehran covered up a nuclear weapons programme before signing a deal with the international community in 2015.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged President Donald Trump to withdraw from the deal next month.
ISRAEL HAS unveiled a “half-ton” of Iranian nuclear documents which it claims prove that Tehran covered up a nuclear weapons programme before signing a deal with the international community in 2015.
In a speech delivered in English and relying on visual aids, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the material showed Iran cannot be trusted, and urged President Donald Trump to withdraw from the deal next month.
“Iran lied, big time,” Mr Netanyahu said.
His presentation, delivered on live TV from Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv, was his latest attempt to sway international opinion on the nuclear deal.
The agreement offered Iran relief from crippling sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
Mr Netanyahu furiously fought the deal while Barack 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 a nuclear weapons capability.
He has found a welcome partner in Mr Trump, who called the agreement “the worst deal ever”.
The US president 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.
Mr Netanyahu said he would share the newly uncovered information with Western allies and the international nuclear agency.
Iran has adamantly denied ever seeking nuclear weapons. The semi-official Fars news agency, believed to be close to the hard-line Revolutionary Guard, dismissed Mr Netanyahu’s speech as a “propaganda show”.
The PM said Israel had obtained 55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs of secret information from an Iranian nuclear weapons programme called Project Amad. He said the material was gathered from a vaulted Iranian facility a few weeks ago “in a great intelligence achievement”.
He provided no direct evidence that Tehran has violated the 2015 deal. The agreement is not believed to have banned Iran from keeping its old records.
But Mr Netanyahu said the existence of the documents proves that Tehran is waiting to resume its race to build a bomb.
He and Mr Trump say the deal should address Iranian support for militants across the region and Iran’s development of longrange ballistic missiles, as well as eliminate provisions that expire over the next decade.
Mr Trump said the presentation and other recent events show he was “100 per cent right” about Iran.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, mocked the Israeli leader by tweeting a photo of his famous 2012 UN speech in which he used a cartoon-like drawing of a bomb to rail against Iran’s nuclear programme. “The boy who can’t stop crying wolf is at it again,” Mr Zarif said. “Undeterred by cartoon fiasco at UNGA. You can only fool some of the people so many times.”
■ A missile attack targeting government outposts in Syria’s northern region killed 26 progovernment fighters – mostly Iranians – amid soaring Middle East tensions and speculation that it was carried out by Israel.
The attack came hours after telephone talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, with the White House saying the leaders discussed the continuing threats and challenges in the region.
The boy who can’t stop crying wolf is at it again.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif mocks Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims.