Israel has accused Iran of hiding nuclear material at a secret warehouse in Tehran, saying the facility was proof that Iran still holds ambitions to one day develop a nuclear weapon.
In a speech before the UN, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said his country’s spies had located “a secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons programme”.
Mr Netanyahu said Iran had recently moved 15kg of radioactive material from the warehouse and “spread it around Tehran in an effort to hide the evidence”. He claimed the warehouse at one point may have held up to 300 tonnes of material and equipment.
If the Israeli accusations are verified, it could provide proof that Iran is in breach of the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, denounced Mr Netanyahu as a "liar who would not stop lying," according to Iranian state media. He denounced the Israeli leader’s presentation as an "arts and crafts show".
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and European countries have consistently said Iran is abiding by the terms of the nuclear deal.
Mr Netanyahu accused Britain, France and Germany of appeasing Iran by continuing to uphold the nuclear agreement.
"While the United States is confronting Iran with new sanctions, Europe and others are appeasing Iran by trying to help it bypass those new sanctions," he said said. "Have these European leaders learned nothing from history? Will they ever wake up?"
Mr Netanyahu’s latest salvo against Iran came five months after he revealed that Israel had stolen thousands of documents from an Iranian “atomic archive” in Tehran, which he said showed Iran was holding onto the know how to make a bomb.
His latest allegations are potentially more serious if they show Iran has undeclared nuclear material. He challenged the IAEA to carry out an inspection at the warehouse in the Turquzabad district in southern Tehran.
"Since we raided the atomic archive, they’ve been busy cleaning out the atomic warehouse. Just last month they removed 15 kilograms of radioactive material. You know what they did with it?" he said.
"They took it out and they spread it around Tehran in an effort to hide the evidence."
The Israeli leader also lambasted Iran’s ballistic missile activity, identifying three locations near Beirut airport where he said Lebanon’s Hezbollah was converting missiles.
"In Lebanon, Iran is directing Hezbollah to build secret sites to convert inaccurate projectiles into precision-guided missiles, missiles that can target deep inside Israel within an accuracy of 10 metres," he said.