Israel: Iran had secret nuke plans

Netanyahu says his country has documents that prove Tehran lied about bomb program

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country has half a ton of Iranian documents that prove Tehran had a secret program to build nuclear bombs, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to hint that he would pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear accord.

“Iran lied about never having a nuclear weapons program,” Netanyahu said in a press conference in the government’s defense compound in Tel Aviv. “After signing the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran intensified its efforts to hide its nuclear files.”

Israel uncovered 55,000 pages of material on a weapons program that operated between 1999 and 2003 codenamed Project Amad, Netanyahu said, pulling back a curtain to reveal shelves filled with what appeared to be binders and compact discs of information. He said the nuclear program continued after it was subsumed under a different guise, and that Iran took steps as recently as last year to move its files to a concealed location so it could revive the program down the line.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, called Netanyahu’s allegations lies, and his deputy, Abbas Araghchi, said the presentation used an “old, worn-out scenario” to build a case against Tehran, which denies ever having sought to build a bomb. Some analysts agreed that Netanyahu repackaged old information.

Netanyahu spoke less than two weeks before Trump is to decide whether the U.S. will pull out of the international agreement between Iran and six world powers that curbed Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The accord lifts key restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear activities beginning in 2025, and Trump has warned that he would withdraw from the pact unless it was revised to bar Iran from ever developing atomic weapons.

In remarks in Washington after Netanyahu spoke, Trump left open the possibility of negotiating a new Iran deal but hinted the U.S. would quit the accord by May 12, the deadline he’s set for a decision.

“I’m not telling you what I’m doing but a lot of people think they know,” he said. “And on or before the 12th we’ll make a decision. That doesn’t mean we won’t negotiate a real agreement.”