Washington,
\nIran has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons programme that it tried but failed to hide from the world and from its own people, a top White House official has alleged.<\/p>\n
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the recent information released by Israel provided new and compelling details about Iran\u2019s efforts to develop missile-deliverable nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
Sanders and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued strong statements on Monday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of having secretly pursued a nuclear weapons programme.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu said he had conclusive proof that Iran had lied about its nuclear weapons programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese facts are consistent with what the United States has long known: Iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons programme that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranian regime has shown it will use destructive weapons against its neighbours and others. Iran must never have nuclear weapons,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pompeo said the documents obtained by Israel from inside of Iran showed beyond any doubt that the Iranian regime was not telling the truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have personally reviewed many of the Iranian files. Our nonproliferation and intelligence officials have been analysing tens of thousands of pages and translating them from Farsi. This analytical work will continue for many months. We assess that the documents we have reviewed are authentic,\u201d Pompeo said.<\/p>\n
The documents show that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons programme for years. It sought to develop nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems and hid a vast atomic archive from the world and from the International Atomic Energy Agency , he alleged.<\/p>\n
Pompeo said that among the flaws of the Iran nuclear deal was the whitewashing of Tehran\u2019s illicit activities related to its military nuclear programme.<\/p>\n
Iran had many opportunities over the years to turn over its files to international inspectors from the IAEA and admit its nuclear weapons work. Instead, they lied to the IAEA repeatedly, he alleged.<\/p>\n
Pompeo also alleged that Tehran had lied about their nuclear programme to the six nations who negotiated the Iran nuclear deal.<\/p>\n
He said what it meant was the deal was not constructed on a foundation of good faith or transparency and was built on Iran\u2019s lies.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s nuclear deception is inconsistent with Iran\u2019s pledge in the nuclear deal \u201cthat under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons,\u201d he alleged.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are therefore assessing what the discovery of Iran\u2019s secret nuclear files means for the future of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action .<\/p>\n
\u201cAllowing restrictions on Iran\u2019s nuclear programme to sunset was a mistake. One has to ask: Why exactly was Iran hiding half a ton of nuclear weaponisation files while implementing the Iran deal?\u201d Pompeo said.<\/p>\n
He said that as US President Donald Trump\u2019s May 12 deadline to fix the Iran deal was approaching, he would consult with European allies and other nations on the best way forward in light of what they now knew about Iran\u2019s past pursuit of nuclear weapons and its systematic deception of the world.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, Trump threatened to end the Iranian deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn seven years that deal will have expired, and Iran is free to go ahead and create nuclear weapons. That\u2019s not acceptable. Seven years is tomorrow. That\u2019s not acceptable,\u201d Trump said, responding to a question during a joint news conference with the visiting Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is just not an acceptable situation. I\u2019ve been saying that\u2019s happening. They\u2019re not sitting back idly. They\u2019re setting off missiles which they say are for television purposes. I don\u2019t think so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, Iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons programme that it tried but failed to hide from the world and from its own people, a top White House official has alleged. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the recent information released by Israel provided new and compelling details about Iran\u2019s efforts to develop missile-deliverable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29749,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29747\/revisions\/29749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}