Iran: US, Israeli leaders' new claims 'worthless'

Iran says Israel's atomic weapons arsenal represents the biggest threat to the world peace, dismissing new allegations by Israeli and US leaders against Iran's nuclear program as "hollow" and "worthless".

The reaction on Thursday came a day after US President Donald Trump called Iran's nuclear program a threat to Israel during a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. 

"The statements did not contain any new point except being a repetition of hollow and worthless allegations against Iran's peaceful nuclear program," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said. 

Terming the nuclear deal with Iran as "the worst" agreement ever, Trump pledged to impose new sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from what he called developing a nuclear weapon. 

Qassemi said, "Such claims are repeated while the International Atomic Energy Agency, in its reports, has time and again confirmed Iran's nuclear program as peaceful - a fact which has been verified many times by different countries."

"The bitter truth is that these remarks and inadmissible allegations are repeated by a regime which is not committed to any international law and convention and has hundreds of warheads in its atomic arsenal," he said. 

Israel, Qassemi said, "is viewed as the biggest threat to peace and security in the Middle East and the world and its ponderous file of endless atrocities and inhuman actions against the oppressed Palestinian people and other neighbors is recorded in numerous UN reports."

In their joint news conference, Netanyahu applauded Trump for his harsh stand on Iran which was slapped with new sanctions by the new US administration in violation of the nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). 

On Tuesday, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano confirmed that Iran was implementing the nuclear agreement under which Tehran has undertaken to scale back its nuclear program in return for lifting of the sanctions.

Qassemi said, "Nuclear weapons are haram (forbidden) from the religious standpoint, corresponding with the fatwa of the Eminent Leader of the Islamic Revolution (Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei) and have no place in Iran's military doctrine."

The Islamic Republic, he said, will seriously continue to pursue those components of its peaceful nuclear program which are validated by the United Nations Security Council within the framework of the JCPOA.     

Under Resolution 2231, the Security Council has endorsed the nuclear deal, which went into effect in January 2016.

On his campaign trail, Trump threatened to annul the deal, which he has lambasted as “the worst accord ever negotiated” and “one of the dumbest” ones he has come cross.

Washington has taken a tougher line on Iran since Trump took office on January 20. Last month, the US said it had put Tehran "on notice" after the Islamic Republic tested a ballistic missile which is not prohibited by the nuclear deal.

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