Iran Calls Claims of Nuclear Document Theft by Mossad 'Ridiculous'

Three and a half months after Israel claimed that Mossad had obtained 'half a ton of authentic documents from the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran' and transferred them from the outskirts of Tehran to Tel Aviv, Iran has once again rejected this claim, describing it as 'ridiculously meaningless.' The New York Times reported on Wednesday, July 18, that the Iranian mission to the United Nations responded to a report from the newspaper published on Monday. Alireza Miryousefi, the press counselor of the Iranian mission to the UN, tweeted, 'Iran has always been transparent about the fact that the construction of weapons of mass destruction is against national values.' According to ISNA, Miryousefi added, 'The claim that Iran left its sensitive information in remote warehouses in Tehran is ridiculously meaningless.' The New York Times reported on Monday, July 25, that Israel invited a reporter from this newspaper, along with two other journalists from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, to view the documents transferred to Israel and provided details about how Mossad operatives accessed Iran's nuclear archives. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed documents and CDs that had reached Israel during a program at the country's Ministry of Defense on April 29, claiming to 'prove' that Iran's primary goal from its nuclear program was to produce an atomic bomb and mount a nuclear warhead on its long-range missiles. Netanyahu stated that Iran has 'lied' about its peaceful intentions regarding its nuclear program and that the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers, was 'based on years of Iranian lies,' and therefore, 'the JCPOA must either be completely changed or canceled.' Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at that time called Netanyahu a 'lying shepherd' who resorted to old accusations that the International Atomic Energy Agency had previously addressed to cancel the JCPOA. Eight days after Netanyahu's conference, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on May 8 Washington's withdrawal from the JCPOA and signed an executive order reinstating sanctions against Iran. The Hebrew state media 'Kan' broadcast Netanyahu's voice this week from a closed meeting with activists of the ruling Likud party, where he stated that he was the one who convinced Trump to withdraw from the 'JCPOA' and take a stance against the Iranian regime. International nuclear experts say that the documents obtained by Israel are genuine and authentic but relate to the past nature of Iran's nuclear program, and Tehran abandoned its goal of obtaining an atomic bomb after its program was exposed in 2003. According to a report published this week in three American newspapers, 20 Mossad agents infiltrated a warehouse in the Shourabad area on the outskirts of Tehran on the night of January 31, 2018, which had been under Mossad surveillance for a long time, and broke into many safes, taking documents and CDs containing Iran's nuclear program with them. Based on information provided by Mossad to the reporters of the three newspapers, the Mossad agents had six hours and 29 minutes to carry out their mission; they arrived at the site with thermal equipment to open the safes and then separately took parts of the documents towards the borders, so that if anyone was arrested, the others would have part of the documents. However, all of them, most of whom were Iranian, managed to escape. According to the New York Times, forces in Iran collaborated with Mossad agents and guided them on which safes to target; 'those with a black tape.' Following the publication of the New York Times report, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Parliament, said this week that the commission would not address the issue of the theft of nuclear documents. Falahatpisheh stated on one hand that the issue is 'false in our belief' because Israel 'has a long history of creating a psychological atmosphere and lies against our country,' but on the other hand, he said, 'I cannot confirm the truth or falsity of it.' Iran and Israel have been each other's fiercest enemies for about 40 years since the establishment of the Islamic Republic; regarding Iran's nuclear program and recently concerning Iran's military presence in Syria, the possibility of direct war between the two regimes has also been raised. Recently, it has been shown that intelligence operations, security actions, and cyber activities are also part of the ongoing real and large-scale war behind the scenes between these two countries. Despite Israeli officials calling the acquisition of the original documents of Iran's nuclear program a significant achievement in the history of Mossad, they themselves revealed in recent weeks that a former minister who was a member of the security cabinet of this country had been 'spying' for the Islamic Republic of Iran for years. Dr. Gonen Segev, a pediatric surgeon and former Minister of Energy in the governments of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, has been accused by the Israeli prosecution of providing sensitive security and energy information to Iran during multiple meetings in Nigeria, Iran, and other parts of the world. Segev's trial has recently begun. Iran has apparently either kept silent about the collaboration of its forces in various institutions with Mossad or is addressing such collaborations behind the scenes, which could be considered a 'great betrayal.' Netanyahu had stated that only a handful of people in Iran knew where Iran's nuclear documents were kept; this could raise the suspicion that among those who hold the most sensitive information of Iran, there has been collaboration with Mossad.