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Iran FM raps West, IAEA hypocrisy over Israel’s quiet expansion of Dimona nuclear site

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has lashed out at European leaders and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for turning a blind eye to the Israel regime’s quiet expansion of the highly-secretive Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert while targeting Tehran’s nuclear program.

“Israel is expanding Dimona, the region’s only nuclear bomb factory,” Zarif said in a post on his Twitter account on Saturday.

Israel is expanding Dimona, the region's only nuclear bomb factory.@POTUS@iaeaorg@BorisJohnson @EmmanuelMacron#AngelaMerkel

Gravely concerned?

Concerned? A little?

Care to comment?

I thought so. pic.twitter.com/qwvlKONEqi

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) February 20, 2021

Tagging US President Joe Biden, the IAEA, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the top Iranian diplomat tweeted, “Gravely concerned? Concerned? A little? Care to comment? I thought so.”

Zarif’s tweet came after newly-released satellite images have revealed that the Israeli regime — the sole possessor of nuclear arms in the Middle East — is conducting “significant” constructive activities at the Dimona nuclear facility.

Citing commercial satellite imagery of the facility, the International Panel on Fissile Material (IPFM), a group of independent nuclear experts from 17 countries, reported Thursday that “significant new construction” had been underway at the Dimona complex.

The construction site sits “in the immediate vicinity of the buildings that house the nuclear reactor and the reprocessing plant,” the report said.

Dimona, which is widely believed to be key to Israel’s nuclear arms manufacturing program, was built with covert assistance from the French government and activated sometime between 1962–1964, according to reports.

Israel has acknowledged the existence of the Dimona nuclear reactor, but neither confirms nor denies the purpose of the facility, which is assumed to be the manufacturing of nukes.

Turning a deaf ear to international calls for nuclear transparency, the regime has so far refused, with the US' invariable support, to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

Western countries and some of their allies accused the Islamic Republic of seeking to build a nuclear bomb, an allegation Tehran categorically denied.


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