Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of continuing to hide and expand its nuclear weapons knowhow after a 2015 agreement with global powers, presenting what the Israeli prime minister claimed was “new and conclusive proof”.
However, at least some of the evidence Netanyahu presented on Monday had previously been seen by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as early as 2005 and made public by the agency in 2011.
The IAEA judged that substantial work on nuclear weapons development ceased in 2003, and that there was no evidence of weapons research after 2009. Under the 2015 nuclear deal, the task of investigating Iran’s nuclear past was handed to the IAEA.
In a televised prime-time speech, Netanyahu said Israel had tens of thousands of documents from what he called Iran’s “Atomic Archives”, which he presented as new evidence, and which he said had been shared with the US.
“Iran lied, big time,” he said, speaking from Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv. “Iran is brazenly lying when it said it never had a nuclear weapons programme.”
Netanyahu’s presentation came less than two weeks before Donald Trump is due to decide whether to continue to abide by the 2015 deal by waiving US sanctions on Iran. Asked about the Israeli evidence on Monday, Trump said it proved he was “100% right” about the flaws of the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA)
“I’ve been saying it’s happening” Trump said at the White House. “They’re not sitting back idly.”
Asked about his intentions on 12 May, the deadline for the sanctions waivers, the president said: “So we’ll see what happens. I’m not telling anyone what I’m doing.”
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
