White House defends Israeli accusations against Iran nuclear program

Rasa - The US White House has defended the Israeli prime minister’s recent anti-Iran accusations, saying that the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran was reached under a “false pretense.”

News ID: 437449

Date: 02 May 2018 - 20:06

RNA - White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the claim at a press briefing on Tuesday, saying that Iran's nuclear capabilities were more advanced than Tehran indicated when it inked the landmark nuclear deal at the time with the international community.

"The problem is that the deal was made on a completely false pretense. Iran lied on the front end, they were dishonest actors and so the deal that was made was made on things that were not accurate," Sanders said. "We have a big problem with that. Particularly the fact that Iran's nuclear capabilities were far more advanced and far further along than they ever indicated."

Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a televised address on Monday, accusing Iran of violating the multilateral nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015.

Standing in front of a big screen and using large visual aids, the prime minister claimed that “Iran is brazenly lying” about its nuclear activities, presenting 55,000 pages of documents and 55,000 files on CDs as alleged evidence.

Following Netanyahu’s example, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also repeated the same accusations and said in a statement that “the documents show that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program for years. Iran sought to develop nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems."

Netanyahu’s new anti-Iran show comes only ahead of a May 12 deadline for US President Donald Trump to decide whether Washington would keep its side of the multilateral deal with Iran. Trump has given the European parties to the JCPOA until that date to "fix" the so-called “flaws” in the accord or face a US exit.

The Israeli premier’s fresh claims contradict numerous reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), verifying Iran’s full commitment to its side of the pact.

According to Press TV, the European Union, France, United Kingdom, and Germany have expressed support for the deal in the wake of the Israeli claims.

Iran has on numerous occasions asserted that its nuclear program is merely peaceful and not meant to make nukes.

This is while Israel is widely thought to possess hundreds of nuclear nuclear warheads and refuses to either allow inspections of its nuclear facilities or join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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