MI6 chief Alexander Younger
Channel
13: Alex Younger holds talks with Mossad chief as Iran renews centrifuge
production; Israeli assessment: Regime has not yet made political decision to
break out to bomb
Britain’s MI6 intelligence chief secretly visited Israel this
week for talks with his Israeli counterparts about concerns that Iran may be
considering breaching the 2015 nuclear deal and attempting to break out to a
nuclear weapons capability, Israeli television reported on Friday night.
Channel 13 news said MI6 chief Alex Younger arrived in Israel on
Monday and met with the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, Yossi
Cohen, and other Israeli intelligence chiefs.
Israel’s assessment is that Iran is “making
preparations” within the provisions of the 2015 deal, and “getting ready,” but
has not yet made the political decision to break out to the bomb, the TV report
said.
Citing Western intelligence sources, it said
the issue was also discussed by participants at last week’s Munich
international security conference.
Iran, the report noted, has recently renewed its production of
centrifuges, “and is gearing up for the renewal of uranium enrichment” within
the provisions of the deal.
The report described Iran’s current activity as “preparing the
infrastructure… in an accelerated fashion” should the regime take the political
decision to breach the accord.
Hours before the TV report, the UN’s nuclear watchdog in Vienna
said Iran was continuing to comply with the 2015 nuclear deal, despite the
United States withdrawing from the pact and re-imposing sanctions.
In a confidential quarterly report distributed to its member
states, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has been abiding with
key limitations set in the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.
The US pulled out of the deal in May and has been pressuring remaining
signatories to abandon it as well.
In its report, the Vienna-based agency said its inspectors still
have access to all sites and locations in Iran they needed to visit.
“Timely and proactive cooperation by Iran in providing such
access facilitates implementation of the Additional Protocol and enhances
confidence,” the report stated, referring to the procedure detailing safeguards
and tools for verification.
It noted that Iran’s stock of heavy water and low-enriched
uranium continues to be under the limits set under the 2015 pact.
Last June, Iran’s nuclear
chief inaugurated a new nuclear enrichment facility at
Natanz, which Iran said was geared toward producing centrifuges to operate
within the limits of the nuclear deal.
Iranian state television broadcast an interview
with Ali Akbar Salehi showcasing the facility at Natanz’s uranium enrichment
center. In the interview, Salehi said its construction began even before the
2015 deal was signed.
Last month, Salehi
bragged in another interview that Iran quietly purchased replacement parts
for its Arak nuclear reactor while it was conducting negotiations for the deal
under which it knew it would be required to destroy the original components.
Israel’s Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu warns constantly that Iran has never abandoned its ambition
to achieve a nuclear weapons capability. Last year, the Mossad spirited a huge
haul of documents from what it said was Iran’s nuclear weapons archive, which Netanyahu said proved conclusively that Iran has lied to
the world when claiming it has not been seeking to produce nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu said at the UN
General Assembly in September that “The reason Iran didn’t destroy its atomic archive
and its atomic warehouse is because it hasn’t abandoned its goal to develop
nuclear weapons. In fact, it planned to use both of these sites in a few years
when the time would be right to break out to the atom bomb.
“That won’t happen,” he vowed. “It won’t happen because what Iran hides, Israel will find.”
“That won’t happen,” he vowed. “It won’t happen because what Iran hides, Israel will find.”
***
My comment:
Israel better have someone at the helm who understands the magnitude of the Iranian threat.
My comment:
Israel better have someone at the helm who understands the magnitude of the Iranian threat.
