Iran continues to make nuclear arms, Israel says
Jerusalem criticizes five powers for enabling Tehran to dodge sanctions
UNITED NATIONS— Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday criticized Europe for enabling Iran to pursue its nuclear program and bared a secret atomic warehouse in Tehran.
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu showed an aerial photograph of Tehran and pointed to what he said was a previously secret warehouse holding nuclearrelated material.
Atomic warehouse
“I am disclosing for the first time that Iran has another secret facility in Tehran, a secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and materiel from Iran’s secret nuclear program,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu said the site contained some 15 kg of radioactive material that has since been moved, and he called on the UN atomic agency to inspect the location immediately with Geiger counters.
Netanyahu did not identify the material.
He argued this showed Iran still sought to obtain nuclear weapons, despite its 2015 agreement with world powers.
Iranian denial
But Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Bahram Qassemi denied Netanyahu’s claim.
“The world will only laugh loudly at this type of false, meaningless and unnecessary speech and false shows,” Qassemi said.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that there should be more scrutiny on Israel’s nuclear program.
“No arts & craft show will ever obfuscate that Israel is only regime in our region with a *se- cret* and *undeclared* nuclear weapons program - including an *actual atomic arsenal*,” Zarif posted on Twitter.
Netanyahu criticized Europe for doing so in unusually harsh language that evoked European nations’ initial failure to confront Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Europe enabling Iran
“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,” Netanyahu said.
Under the nuclear deal Iran struck with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, Tehran agreed to limit its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly said Tehran was abiding by its commitments to the deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.