In an interview, the president of the Strategic Council for International Relations, which depends on the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, affirms that his country “has the technical capacities to manufacture a nuclear bomb”, but has not taken the decision to go to the manufacturing phase.
Iran “has the technical capacity to manufacture a nuclear bomb”, declared on Sunday July 17 Kamal Kharrazi, the president of the Strategic Council for International Relations, which depends on the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, assuring however that Tehran had not taken the decision to do so. In statements to Al-Jazeera published on the Qatar channel’s website, he added that Iran had carried out “extensive maneuvers to be able to strike Israel in depth if its sensitive installations are targeted”. Mr. Kharrazi, former Foreign Minister of reformist President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), however assured that his country had “not taken the decision to manufacture an atomic bomb.”
Israel, which considers Iran its number one enemy, opposes a relaunch of the 2015 international Iranian nuclear agreement – supposed to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring the atomic bomb in exchange for the lifting of sanctions suffocating its economy – from which the United States withdrew in 2018.
“Shadow War”
Iran and Israel, considered by experts as the only nuclear power in the Middle East, are also waging a “shadow war” with cyberattacks, attacks at sea or accusations of assassinations in particular.
Mr. Kharrazi’s remarks come as negotiations between Tehran and the major powers, including Washington, to relaunch the 2015 agreement have been stalled since March. They also come the day after the end of the first tour of the Middle East by American President Joe Biden, who signed Thursday in Israel with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid a security pact committing the United States never to allow the Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. This pact is “a great sign of the deception and hypocrisy” of the United States because “they turn a blind eye to the Zionist regime as the largest holder of the arsenal of nuclear weapons in the region”, reacted Sunday morning the Iranian spokesman for Foreign Affairs, Nasser Kanani. Iran has always denied wanting to acquire the atomic bomb.