Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Zarif dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent allegations at the UN General Assembly as “nonsense.”
According to Netanyahu, last February, Israel conducted a daring raid on Iran’s secret atomic archive, in vaults in an innocent looking building in the heart of Tehran, and obtained more than 100,000 documents and videos with hard evidence of Iran’s plans to build nuclear weapons and its plans to deceive the international community. These were shared with the members of the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, and with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Speaking last week at the UN, Netanyahu disclosed for the first time that Iran had another secret facility in Tehran—a secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and materiel from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.
“It’s right here, in the Turquz-abad District of Tehran, just there miles away,” Netanyahu said, pointing to a satellite image of the site.
Speaking to CBS Face the Nation Saturday night, FM Zarif responded to the Israeli PM’s allegations, saying, “Well, he’s been making allegations about Iran since 1992.”
“In 1992, according to him, we were supposed to have finished making a bomb in about five years, in 1996 in still five years,” Zarif said. “So he’s been on the record even testifying before Congress that Iran is just about to make a nuclear weapon. […] If he’s concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, the best way to make sure, is the deal that he has done his best to undermine, because JCPOA, the nuclear deal, allows the IAEA the most intrusive inspections that are available in the world and Iran accepted those intrusive inspections because we did not have anything to hide.”
“You remember a few weeks ago he stood beside Dimona which is the bomb making factory of Israel and threatened Iran with annihilation and now he says that the Iranians threatened them with annihilation,” Zarif added.
Zarif was probably referring to a statement by the director general of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission Zeev Snir on Sept. 20, saying Israel is upgrading and reinforcing its nuclear sites to meet Iranian threats to attack them.
Snir said, “We cannot ignore the repeated and explicit threats, made my Iran and its proxies, to attack Israel’s nuclear sites. These outrageous threats require Israel to take action and continue to protect and defend its nuclear facilities. These facilities are constantly upgraded and reinforced, in line with IAEA safety guidelines, in order to withstand any attack.”