Iran In Race To Develop Atomic Bomb, Warn Intelligence Chiefs (Worthy News In-Depth)
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
JERUSALEM/TEHRAN (Worthy News) – Iran held a key national military ceremony Sunday amid mounting concerns it could have an atomic bomb soon.
The commemoration of the Iranian Navy National Day was held in Kish Island, southern Iran, Worthy News monitored, with the reported participation of delegates from its ally Russia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Oman along with 24 military attaches from 24 countries.
It followed sensitive talks over the weekend between European and Iranian diplomats in the Swiss city of Geneva, seen as a neutral location, to defuse tensions in the region over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Geneva was where world powers and Iran achieved a first breakthrough in nuclear talks more than a decade ago before reaching a deal in 2015, but there were no signs yet of such an outcome this time.
They gathered as British and French intelligence chiefs warned Iran’s nuclear ambitions to pose a major global threat within the coming months, suggesting Tehran was racing to reach atomic power status.
Separately, the United Nations’ nuclear agency said Tehran had plans to install some 6,000 new centrifuges to enrich uranium.
In a speech in Paris, France, Britain’s foreign intelligence chief, Richard Moore, noted that Tehran’s “nuclear ambitions continue to threaten us all” despite “serious blows” dealt to its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah by Israel.
The head of France’s intelligence service agreed that the risk of Iranian nuclear proliferation is a severe threat in the coming months but pledged that Britain and France are preparing for such an event.
FACING THREATS
“Our services are working side by side to face what is undoubtedly one of the threats, if not to say the most critical threat, in the coming months – the possible atomic proliferation in Iran,” Nicolas Lerner said at the British embassy in Geneva.
“The intelligence will be crucial to enable our authorities to make the right decisions and define the right strategies,” he added in rare public comments.
Iran previously denied developing nuclear weapons, but Western officials say there is no civil explanation for enriching uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent that is weapons-grade.
No other country has done so without producing an atomic bomb, experts say.
And in a sign Tehran’s nuclear doctrine is changing, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stressed Thursday that his country, which is “nominally opposed to nuclear weapons,” could “change course” if sanctions are reintroduced.
Hours later, in a television interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel would do “everything” to stop Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Yet Iran, Britain, France, and Germany still agreed to continue diplomatic dialogue “in the near future,” the German foreign ministry and high-level British, French, and Iranian diplomats announced after Friday’s talks in Geneva.
DIALOGUE PATH
“We are firmly committed to pursuing the interests of our people, and our preference is the path of dialogue and engagement,” Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, added on social media platform X.
Worthy News learned that they gathered for the first time since the United States presidential election last month to assess whether progress can be made ahead of Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House on January 20.
The U.S. president-elect, who pulled Washington out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran during his first term, vowed to renew his “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran, suggesting more sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
On Sunday, Iranian government and military officials made it a point to take away attention from a looming nuclear crisis as they gathered with Iran’s allies for an additional observation of Iranian Naval National Day.
Tehran said it was held on “the occasion of the successful Iranian Navy Operation Morvarid (Pearl) against the Iraqi Baathist regime’s naval and air attack on Iran on November 27, 1980.”
“Developing maritime diplomacy is a key strategy and responsibility of naval forces globally,” claimed Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani.
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