European powers say Iran deal vital

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No credible evidence of Iran N-bid after 2009: IAEA

JERUSALEM, May 1, (Agencies): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest accusations about Iran’s past nuclear activities received a warm welcome in Washington but a far cooler reception in Europe on Tuesday — deepening divisions among Western allies ahead of President Donald Trump’s decision on whether to withdraw from the international nuclear deal later this month.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US would discuss Israel’s newest purported evidence with the other global powers that negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal. But Britain said the information reinforced the need to keep the deal in place. The UN nuclear agency said it considered the matter of whether Iran had previously pursued nuclear weapons to be “closed.”

Netanyahu has been an outspoken critic of the deal, which offered Iran relief from crippling international sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. Netanyahu says the deal will not prevent Iran, Israel’s most bitter enemy, from reaching a nuclear weapons capability.

After clashing with president Barack Obama when the deal was negotiated, Netanyahu has found a close ally in Trump, who has called the agreement “the worst deal ever.” Trump has signaled he will withdraw from the agreement by May 12 if it is not renegotiated and changed.

Netanyahu’s presentation late Monday, delivered in English on live TV and making heavy use of visual aids, appeared to be aimed at swaying global opinion ahead of Trump’s decision. He unveiled what he said was a “half ton” of Iranian nuclear documents he said were illicitly seized by Israeli intelligence. Netanyahu said the documents provided evidence that Iran attempted to develop a nuclear bomb in the previous decade, especially before 2003. Although he gave no explicit evidence that Iran has violated the 2015 deal, he said Iran had clearly lied in the past and could not be trusted. Iran has denied ever pursuing nuclear arms.

Documents
Speaking on Fox News Tuesday, Netanyahu said Israel had obtained the documents in February and shared all of the information with the US. Netanyahu said the trove of documents showed that Iran is “trying to bamboozle the entire world” and expressed hope that Trump would pull out of the deal. The White House acknowledged receiving the information from Israel, saying it was examining 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 White House said in a statement. An earlier statement by the White House stated that Iran “has” a clandestine nuclear weapons program before it corrected it to due to what it said was a clerical error. A 2007 National Intelligence Estimate judged with “high confidence” that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. The IAEA later reached a similar judgment. Iran has denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and accuses its arch-foe Israel of stirring up world suspicions against it.

Details
A White House official said the information provided compelling details about “Iran’s past efforts” to develop nuclear weapons. Pompeo, who was returning to the US after his first official visit to the Middle East, said he had discussed the material with Netanyahu during a stop in Israel this week and would raise the matter with European allies. He said the documents showed Iran sought nuclear weapons and hid a vast archive of information from the world and the UN nuclear agency.

“What this means is the deal was not constructed on a foundation of good faith or transparency. It was built on Iran’s lies,” he said. The initial European reaction, however, was cool. Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, said Netanyahu’s presentation “underlines the importance” of keeping the deal, with its tough constraints on Iran, in place. “The Iran nuclear deal is not based on trust about Iran’s intentions; rather it is based on tough verification,” he said.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, has said Iran in the early 1990s “may have received design information for a nuclear explosive device from a clandestine nuclear supply network.” It says Iran also worked in the 2000s on explosive detonators that “have characteristics relevant to a nuclear explosive device,” as well as done other work, though all that appears to have stopped in 2009. Responding to Netanyahu’s speech, the IAEA issued a statement Tuesday reaffirming that “the agency had no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009.” The IAEA has repeatedly certified that Iran is in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. In a “preliminary reaction,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Netanyahu had not provided evidence that Iran is violating the current deal and noted its continued compliance.

France said Tuesday that new claims about Iran’s nuclear programme presented by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reinforced the importance of a 2015 deal that imposes controls on the Islamic republic. The French foreign ministry said the details needed to be “studied and evaluated” but a spokesperson added that the evidence appeared to confirm what European powers had known for more than a decade and half. “At first sight, they (the details) confirm that part of the Iranian nuclear programme, as France and its partners stated during the first revelations in the summer of 2002, was not civilian,” said the spokesperson in a statement received by AFP.

“The pertinence of the deal is reinforced by the details presented by Israel: all activity linked to the development of a nuclear weapon is permanently forbidden by the deal,” said the foreign ministry spokesperson. “The inspection regime put in place by the (UN nuclear watchdog) IAEA thanks to the deal is one of the most exhaustive and the most robust in the history of nuclear non-proliferation,” the statement added. French President Emmanuel Macron has urged Trump to stick with the nuclear accord, arguing that it presents the only viable option available to the international community. Besides agreeing to snap inspections Iran also cut the number of centrifuges used for enriching uranium and reduced its stockpiles of the material. Yoel Guzansky, senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank, said Netanyahu’s message was unlikely to change minds in Washington or Europe.

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