Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said he was “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 weapons programme.”
Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly that Iran cannot be trusted and poses a massive threat to international security.
Netanyahu’s presentation, in which he used props, marked the latest in a run of accusations about Iran’s nuclear program as he ratchets up his campaign against the 2015 global accord that is meant to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Photo: Bloomberg
He said UN nuclear inspectors should examine the “secret atomic warehouse.”
Showing a map and photograph of the site, he said Iran concealed “massive amounts of equipment and material” in a facility near a rug-cleaning plant in Turquzabad District.
He said Iranian officials cleared out some radioactive material in recent weeks and secretly released it around Tehran.
“You have to ask yourself a question: Why did Iran keep a secret atomic archive and a secret atomic warehouse?” he asked. “What Iran hides, Israel will find.”
He said Israel shared the information with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and urged it to inspect the site. Netanyahu made a similar accusation in May, saying Israeli agents spirited away a “half ton” of documents regarding Iran’s nuclear program from a facility in Tehran’s Shourabad neighborhood.
Iran has not acknowledged the alleged seizure.
US President Donald Trump cited that announcement when he withdrew the US from the nuclear accord soon afterward.
That agreement came after years of Western sanctions over Iran’s contested atomic program. The deal saw Iran drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Iran long has denied seeking atomic weapons.
In the 1990s, Iran expanded its nuclear program and “may have received design information” for a bomb and researched explosive detonators, the IAEA said.
By 2002, Western intelligence services and an Iranian opposition group revealed a covert nuclear site at the central city of Natanz.
The IAEA has said there was “no credible” evidence of Iran seeking a nuclear explosive device after 2009.
Israel, which considers Iran to be its biggest threat, has sought repeatedly to undercut the 2015 nuclear deal, despite the UN repeatedly confirming Iran abides by its terms.
Since Trump’s decision to withdraw from the accord, Iran’s already-anemic economic has seen a drastic devaluation of its rial currency. While the rial in May traded at about 62,000 to the US dollar, on Thursday it traded at about 177,000 to US$1.
Netanyahu urged European signatories to join Trump in abandoning the deal and halting trade with Iran.
“Does anyone seriously believe that flooding Iran’s theocracy with weapons and cash will curb its appetite for aggression?” Netanyahu asked.
“Europeans and others are appeasing Iran by trying to help it bypass” new US sanctions, he said. “Have these European leaders learned nothing from history? Will they ever wake up?”
It was a reference to then-British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s agreement handing Hitler the Sudetenland ahead of World War II, a move seen as Europe appeasing the Nazis at Jews’ expense.
Netanyahu on Thursday also showed images of what he said are rocket factories run by Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah hidden in civilian areas in Lebanon’s capital.
In Tehran yesterday, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed the Israeli claims.
“No arts & craft show will ever obfuscate that Israel is only regime in our region with a *secret* and *undeclared* nuclear weapons program,” Zarif said in a tweet, calling on Israel to “open its illegal nuclear weapons” program to international inspectors.
Additional reporting by AFP
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
RSS