Iran may pursue a nuclear weapon, Intelligence Minister warns West
(Sourced from PTI)
Iran's Intelligence Minister, Mahmoud Alavi, has warned the West that Iran could push for a nuclear weapon if crippling international sanctions on Tehran remain in place, state television reported on Tuesday. Alavi's remarks mark a rare occasion that a government official has said Iran could reverse its course on the nuclear program. Tehran has long insisted that the program is for peaceful purposes only.
"Our nuclear program is peaceful and the 1990 fatwa by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has forbidden nuclear weapons, but if they push Iran into that direction, then it wouldn't be Iran's fault but theirs," Alavi said. However, Alavi added Iran has no plans to move toward a nuclear weapon under current circumstances.
Earlier, 81-year-old Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state in Iran, on Sunday urged the United States to lift all sanctions if it wants Iran to live up to commitments under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. However, President Joe Biden has said the US won't be making the first move.
Following the killing last December of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh credited with spearheading the country's disbanded military nuclear program, Iran's parliament has approved a law to block international nuclear inspectors later this month, a serious violation of the accord. Alavi also said that a member of the Iranian armed forces facilitated the killing of the scientist which Iran has blamed on Israel.
However, the Intelligence Minister did not expand on what he meant and it was not clear if the soldier had carried out the explosion that killed the Fakhrizadeh. Israel, which has been suspected of killing Iranian nuclear scientists over the last decade, has repeatedly declined to comment on the attack.
This was the first time that Iran acknowledged a member of its armed forces may have acted as an accomplice in killing Fakhrizadeh, who headed Iran's AMAD program, which Israel and the West have alleged was a military operation looking at building a nuclear weapon.
International Atomic Energy Agency says that the structured program ended in 2003. US intelligence agencies concurred with that assessment in a 2007 report. However, Israel insists Iran maintains the ambition of developing nuclear weapons, pointing to Tehran's ballistic missile program and research into other technologies. In December, President Hassan Rouhani vowed to avenge Fakhrizadeh's killing, saying Iran will decide the time of any action.
Earlier, in response to former US President Donald Trump's so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran, the country began to gradually violate its atomic commitments under the nuclear deal. The country also threatened further provocations in a bid to increase its leverage and get Biden to prioritize a return to the deal as he moves to dismantle Trump's legacy.
As part of those steps, Iran has begun enriching uranium closer to weapons-grade levels and said it would experiment with uranium metals, a key component of a nuclear warhead. Iran insists that all breaches of the pact are easily reversible.
