Iran warns it is capable of building atomic bomb

Tehran, Aug 1 (EFE).- Iran is capable of making an atomic bomb, the country’s Atomic Energy Organization warned Monday, but has no intention of doing so.

AEOI head Mohammad Eslami echoed earlier remarks made by Kamal Kharrazi, chief of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, that Iran “has the technical capability to build an atomic bomb, but such a measure is not on its agenda,” according to Irna news agency.

Since the United States under previous president Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 international nuclear deal to limit Tehran’s nuclear activities and reinstated severe economic sanctions, Iran has returned to enriching uranium to 60%, far above the 3.67% allowed under the agreement.

Eslami rejected the “Western accusations” that Iran was planning to build an atomic bomb, saying they came from the dissident organization Mujahedeen-e Khalq and Israel.

Eslami added that when the nuclear deal was signed in 2015, all allegations against Iran were withdrawn “but the Western side raises the same false accusations once again to rejoin the deal after they left it.”

The accusations “originated from the Mujahideen-e Khalq and the Zionist regime, as they have been repeating the allegations for almost 20 years,” he stressed.

Eslami pointed out that it was “not acceptable” for Iran to be put under pressure with the repeated accusations, which is why it has decided to turn off all surveillance devices to make the international community understand that “they should not raise vain allegations regarding a case that has been closed.”

Negotiations in Vienna to revive the 2015 accord, under which the US, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and China agreed to lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, have been ongoing since last year but have not yielded any significant progress. EFE

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