Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday unveiled what he claims was a previously undisclosed Iranian nuclear weapons facility and accused Tehran of destroying the site in an effort to deny its existence.
“This is what I have to say to the tyrants of Tehran,” Netanyahu said. “Israel knows what you’re doing, Israel knows when you’re doing it, and Israel knows where you’re doing it.”
He accused Iran of using the facility near the city of Abadeh to “conduct experiments to develop nuclear weapons”and warned the world action should be taken sooner not later to stem any buildup of Iranian nuclear weapons.
The Israeli leader’s revelation came as the U.N. nuclear watchdog held a meeting in Vienna, where he’s hoping the agency will take tougher action against Iran.
Speaking to reporters, Netanyahu said Israel discovered the facility by using information gathered in a trove of documents Israeli agents stole from an Iranian warehouse and made public early last year.
“Iran conducted experiments to develop nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said.
He showed off two satellite photos to support his claim. The first, taken in June, showed the facility intact. The second, taken in July, showed parts of the building had been destroyed, in what he said was an Iranian cover-up after Israel discovered the facility.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, responded to Netanyahu on Twitter, referring to him as “the possessor of real nukes” who “cries wolf – on an alleged ‘demolished’ site in Iran”.
Zarif did not address what the Iranian site was, nor why it appeared to be demolished in Netanyahu’s presentation.
He later tweeted a photograph of a British newspaper story from 1986 detailing Israel’s nuclear program, placed alongside the satellite images Netanyahu showed in his presentation, without offering any caption.
AP contributed to this story