Israel says Iran hid nuclear arms programme
April 30, 2018  23:41
image
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has revealed what he says are "secret nuclear files" proving Iran covertly pursued nuclear weapons.

He said thousands of pages of material obtained by Israel showed Iran had deceived the world by denying it had ever sought nuclear weapons.

Iran agreed in 2015 to curb its nuclear energy programme in return for the lifting of sanctions.

It maintained that it had only been pursuing nuclear energy.

Tweeting earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif appeared to accuse Netanyahu of "fooling people".

US President Donald Trump has long threatened to scrap the deal, which was reached under his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Speaking in English from Israel's defence ministry in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu showed off what he said were "exact copies" of documents obtained by Israeli intelligence from a secret storage facility in Tehran.

There were, he said, 55,000 pages of evidence and a further 55,000 files on 183 CDs.

"Here's what the files included: incriminating documents, incriminating charts, incriminating presentations, incriminating blueprints, incriminating photos, incriminating videos and more," he said.

"These files conclusively prove that Iran was brazenly lying when it said it never had a nuclear weapons programme," he added.

The files had been shared with the US, Netanyahu said, and would be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency. 
« Back to LIVE

TOP STORIES