Netanyahu Rocks UN: Iran Has 'Secret Atomic Warehouse'
Israel’s prime minister levied serious allegations against Iran during this week’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
According to Reuters, Benjamin Netanyahu addressed what he said is “another secret facility” Iran is using to stockpile material related to the development of nuclear weapons.
“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,” he told the international audience Thursday.
Using visual aids to describe the location and capacity of the alleged storage facilities, Netanyahu said that they sprang up in response to a previous raid on a warehouse known to contain such material.
“Since we raided the atomic archive, they’ve been busy cleaning out the atomic warehouse,” he said.
Netanyahu said Iranian officials moved a massive stockpile to various other locations in an effort to conceal it.
“Just last month they removed 15 kilograms of radioactive materiel,” he said. “You know what they did with it? They took it out and they spread it around Tehran in an effort to hide the evidence.”
Even as Netanyahu made the allegation, he said that Iran is still plotting further obfuscation in violation of its agreement to curtail its nuclear-weapons program.
“This site contained as much as 300 tonnes – 300 tonnes – of nuclear-related equipment and materiel,” Netanyahu said.
In response to the comments, a U.S. Department of State source released a statement in support of an International Atomic Energy Agency investigation.
The spokesperson wrote that it was “absolutely imperative that the IAEA fully exercise its authorities in order to provide confidence to the international community that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.”
Iranian officials, however, claimed that the charges against them are unfounded.
Bahram Qassemi, a spokesman for the nation’s foreign ministry, predicted that the “world will only laugh loudly at this type of false, meaningless and unnecessary speech and false shows.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted his denunciation of Netanyahu’s allegations, issuing his own claims about Israel.
“No arts & craft show will ever obfuscate that Israel is only regime in our region with a *secret* and *undeclared* nuclear weapons program – including an *actual atomic arsenal*,” he wrote. “Time for Israel to fess up and open its illegal nuclear weapons program to international inspectors.”
No arts & craft show will ever obfuscate that Israel is only regime in our region with a *secret* and *undeclared* nuclear weapons program – including an *actual atomic arsenal*. Time for Israel to fess up and open its illegal nuclear weapons program to international inspectors.
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) September 27, 2018
In his remarks this week, Netanyahu applauded the U.S. response to Iran while criticizing nations across Europe and beyond.
“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,” he said.
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