While the US and Iran are conducting secret talks on a new temporary nuclear agreement, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made an unusual statement that he is not opposed to an agreement with the West and that it is possible, but emphasized that the nuclear industry developed by Iran must be respected.
“There is nothing problematic in the agreement, but the infrastructure of our nuclear industry must not be touched,” Khamenei said on June 11th, according to reports on Iranian state television.
In his words, Khamenei repeated the false claim that he has been making for many years that Iran’s nuclear facilities are intended for civilian needs only.
According to him, Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons “for religious reasons” and that this is a “lie” that the West is spreading against Iran.
“If we were interested in obtaining such a weapon, they would not be able to stop it,” Khamenei bragged.
Khamenei also referred to the cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and said that the government in Tehran should continue to work together with this agency.
The positive attitude that Supreme Leader Khamenei showed towards the International Atomic Energy Agency is very suspicious, according to senior political figures in Jerusalem, it indicates what is happening behind the scenes, namely the rapprochement of the secret talks between the US and Iran on a new nuclear agreement.
Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency closed one of its three open investigations into the remains of highly enriched uranium discovered at unrecognized nuclear sites in Iran.
Israel accused the International Atomic Energy Agency of having surrendered to the Iranian regime.
This surrender was apparently intended as a preparatory step towards a new nuclear agreement between the powers and Iran.
Israeli outrage is great, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated last week that Israel will not be bound by such an agreement and even hinted that Israel is preparing for the possibility of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Security sources in Israel say that the secret contacts between the US and Iran also deal with a new prisoner exchange deal and that Oman and Qatar are mediating between the two sides.
Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tarek recently visited Iran and according to sources in the Gulf, he brought with him American and European proposals for the Iranian leadership.
The US agreed last week that Iraq will pay Iran a huge sum of 2.76 billion dollars to pay off its debt for gas and electricity it received from Tehran – even though this payment is against sanctions.
A senior official in Baghdad told the Reuters news agency that Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein received permission to bypass the sanctions from US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s tactic is to create a positive atmosphere in his words so that the secret negotiations with the US will continue and at the same time Iran will continue to move towards the nuclear bomb without any interruption.
Iran is already a nuclear threshold country, it continues to enrich uranium, it has an amount of enriched uranium at the level of 60 percent which is enough to produce several bombs, the transition of this amount to a military level of 90 percent takes only a few days.
Ali Khamenei’s words come from a position of strength, Iran has managed over the years to mislead the West and bypass all the obstacles it has placed to prevent it from obtaining the nuclear bomb, now Iran is one to two years away from producing the first nuclear bomb.
Khamenei wants to buy time, he fears a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities before Iran has time to bury them deep in the ground to protect them from air attack.
He repeats the lies he has already told in the past that Iran does not want a nuclear bomb “for religious reasons“, in the past the Iranians claimed that the supreme leader also published a religious ruling (fatwa) on the subject, but to date such a religious ruling has not been officially published by the Iranians.
Khamenei is trying to throw sand in the eyes of the West, Israel has provided the intelligence agencies in the US and Europe with decisive intelligence evidence that Iran has a secret military track to produce a nuclear bomb and that this is the ultimate goal of its nuclear program.
Ali Khamenei’s statement is intended to achieve the following goals.
- The continuation of the secret negotiations between Iran and the powers in an attempt to squeeze more concessions from them.
- Maintaining the option to return to the nuclear agreement with the powers to ease the sanctions imposed on Iran, a return to the nuclear agreement from 2015 will flow about a trillion dollars into the Iranian coffers.
- Piling up difficulties on Israel and disrupting its plans to attack the nuclear facilities in Iran.
- Removing part of the sanctions on Iran, which will allow Iran to strengthen its ballistic missile program and militarily support its affiliates in the Middle East.
Iran has managed to create a very dangerous situation in which it conducts secret negotiations with the powers after it has already become a nuclear threshold state that is in a short distance from the nuclear bomb.
Iranian behavior and the lax response of Western countries to Iran’s lies create the beginning of a nuclear arms race in the region.
Saudi Arabia already demands from the US a uranium enrichment facility as one of the conditions for normalization with Israel, it also wants to become a nuclear threshold state like Iran.
Turkey and Egypt also want a nuclear bomb to maintain a military balance against Iran.
It is forbidden to sit quietly while Ali Khamenei continues to lie, Israel must denounce his words and publish the intelligence evidence it has about the Iranian nuclear military plans, even though the powers close their eyes and bury their heads in the sand like ostriches.
A senior political official says that a new nuclear agreement with Iran will serve well the election campaign of President Biden who wants to flaunt political achievements in the Middle East and reject the harsh criticism of his policies, it seems that this is mainly what interests him at the moment.
