Israel’s prime minister has accused Iran of having secretly pursued a nuclear programme amid rising tensions in the Middle East.
Unveiling a cache of files purporting to show that Iran “brazenly lied” when it said it did not have a nuclear programme, Benjamin Netanyahu gave a theatrical presentation on Monday claiming to have “conclusive” evidence of the “secret programme”.
His speech came against a backdrop of sustained efforts by the Trump administration and its allies at home and in the Middle East to cancel, or at least renegotiate, the 2015 nuclear pact signed between Iran and the US, France, Russia, Germany, China, the UK and the European Union.
“You may well know that Iran’s leaders repeatedly denied ever pursuing nuclear weapons … well tonight I’m here to tell you one thing – Iran lied, big time,” Netanyahu said.
He claimed that Iran, after signing the nuclear deal, intensified its efforts to hide files pertaining to its nuclear programme.
“A few weeks ago, in a great intelligence achievement, Israel obtained half a tonne of the material inside these vaults,” Netanyahu said before proceeding to show “55,000 pages” and another “55,000 files on 183 CDs”.
According to Al Jazeera, later on Monday Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, denounced Netanyahu’s address as a stunt.
“The boy who can’t stop crying wolf is at it again,” he said on Twitter, referring to Netanyahu’s 2012 UN General Assembly presentation that used props to allege Iran’s nuclear threat.
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