In response to intelligence material revealed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night demonstrating that Iran had plans to develop nuclear weapons deliverable by ballistic missiles, US President Donald Trump said that the nuclear deal with Iran was "not an acceptable situation". “What we've learned has really shown that I have been 100 percent right,” Trump added. President Trump has to decide by May 12 whether the US will withdraw from the 2015 international agreement whereby sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for a fifteen year suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment program.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have been trying to persuade Trump not to withdraw from the agreement, which was signed with Iran by the US, the UK, Russia, France, China, Germany, and the European Union
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in response to Netanyahu's revelations, “The United States is aware of the information just released by Israel and continues to examine it carefully. This information provides new and compelling details about Iran’s efforts to develop missile-deliverable nuclear weapons. These facts are consistent with what the United States has long known: Iran had a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people. The Iranian regime has shown it will use destructive weapons against its neighbors and others. Iran must never have nuclear weapons.”
Last night, Netanyahu revealed that the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, had obtained an archive consisting of 55,000 pages and another 55,000 files on 183 CDs stored in a dilapidated building in Teheran, that detailed Project Amad, Iran's program for making five nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles. Netanyahu said the archive gave the lie to claims by the Iranian leadership that Iran's nuclear program was purely for peaceful purposes.
"The nuclear deal gives Iran a clear pass to an atomic arsenal. It does so because it gives them the three components that are necessary to produce this arsenal. First, unlimited enrichment in a few years. And they plan to do that. They plan to have several hundred thousand advanced centrifuges with which they can enrich mountains of uranium for that core that I showed you before. For many, many such cores. Second, it completely fails to address Iran’s continued development of ballistic missiles. And third, and this is new, it completely fails to address Iran’s secret nuclear bomb program and its advanced work on weaponization. We just did.
"So this is a terrible deal. It should never have been concluded. And in a few days’ time, President Trump will decide, will make a decision on what to do with the nuclear deal. I’m sure he’ll do the right thing. The right thing for the United States, the right thing for Israel and the right thing for the peace of the world," Netanyahu said in concluding his presentation.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 1, 2018
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