BICOM

UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that secret Iranian nuclear files unveiled by Israel reinforced the need to keep the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement.

In a statement yesterday, the Foreign Secretary said: “The Israeli Prime Minister’s presentation on Iran’s past research into nuclear weapons technology underlines the importance of keeping the Iran nuclear deal’s constraints on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.”

He added that “the Iran nuclear deal is not based on trust about Iran’s intentions; rather it is based on tough verification, including measures that allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear program. The verification provisions in the Iran nuclear deal would make it harder for Iran to restart any such research. That is another good reason for keeping the deal while building on it in order to take account of the legitimate concerns of the US and our other allies”.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented more than 55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs which make up Iran’s hidden “atomic archive” of its previous nuclear weapons programme.

Netanyahu said that in the coming days Israel will share the information with Britain, France and Germany.  French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Agnes von der Muhll said: “This information should be studied and evaluated in detail. The new information presented by Israel could also confirm the need for longer-term assurances on the Iranian programme, as the President has proposed.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the documents revealed by Israel were a rehash of old allegations already dealt with by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, which noted in a statement on Tuesday it had “no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009”.

Hadashot News has reported that Iran may have breached one clause of the JCPOA. According to US government officials, Tehran’s retention of computer models to simulate nuclear explosive devices may be in breach of clause T82.1, whereby Iran vows that it will not engage in “activities which could contribute to the development of a nuclear explosive device.” These include “designing, developing, acquiring, or using computer models to simulate nuclear explosive devices.

NBC news reported last night that it was Israel who attacked the base in Hama, Syria earlier this week after Iran had moved weapons there, among them surface-to-air missiles. The report citied three unnamed US officials who said that the attack was carried out by F-15 planes and that 24 soldiers and officers were killed, and dozens injured.