![\"Iran-may-pursue-nuclear-weapon-intel-minister-warns-West-rapid-news-rapidnews-dailyrapidnews\"](\"https:\/\/dailyrapidnews.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Iran-may-pursue-nuclear-weapon-intel-minister-warns-West-rapid-news-rapidnews-dailyrapidnews.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIran\u2019s intelligence minister has warned the West that his country could push for a nuclear weapon if crippling international sanctions on Tehran remain in place, state television reported Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The remarks by Mahmoud Alavi mark a rare occasion that a government official says Iran could reverse its course on the nuclear program. Tehran has long insisted that the program is for peaceful purposes only.
\nA 1990s fatwa, or religious edict, by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei states that nuclear weapons are forbidden.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur nuclear program is peaceful and the fatwa by the supreme leader has forbidden nuclear weapons, but if they push Iran into that direction, then it wouldn\u2019t be Iran\u2019s fault but theirs,\u201d Alavi was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
However, Alavi added Iran has no plans to move toward a nuclear weapon under \u201ccurrent circumstances.\u201d
\nThe 81-year-old Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state in Iran, on Sunday urged the United States to lift all sanctions if it wants Iran to live up to commitments under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. However, President Joe Biden has said the U.S. won\u2019t be making the first move.
\nFollowing the killing last December of an Iranian scientist credited with spearheading the country\u2019s disbanded military nuclear program, Iran\u2019s parliament has approved a law to block international nuclear inspectors later this month \u2014 a serious violation of the accord.<\/p>\n
Alavi, the intelligence minister, was also quoted as saying that a member of the Iranian armed forces \u201cfacilitated\u201d the killing of the scientist, which Iran has blamed on Israel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The minister did not expand on what he meant \u2014 and it was not clear if the soldier had carried out the explosion that killed the scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Israel, which has been suspected of killing Iranian nuclear scientists over the last decade, has repeatedly declined to comment on the attack.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This was the first time that Iran acknowledged a member of its armed forces may have acted as an accomplice in the killing of Fakhrizadeh, who headed Iran\u2019s so-called AMAD program, which Israel and the West have alleged was a military operation looking at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon.
\nThe International Atomic Energy Agency \u2014 the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog \u2014 says that \u201cstructured program\u201d ended in 2003. U.S. intelligence agencies concurred with that assessment in a 2007 report.<\/p>\n
However, Israel insists Iran still maintains the ambition of developing nuclear weapons, pointing to Tehran\u2019s ballistic missile program and research into other technologies.<\/p>\n
In December Iran\u2019s President Hassan Rouhani vowed to avenge Fakhrizadeh’s killing, saying his country will decide time or venue of any retaliatory action.<\/p>\n
In response to former President Donald Trump\u2019s so-called \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign against Iran, the country began to gradually violate its atomic commitments under the nuclear deal, and threatened further provocations in a bid to increase its leverage and get Biden to prioritize a return to the deal as he moves to dismantle Trump\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n
As part of those steps, Iran has begun enriching uranium closer to weapons-grade levels and said it would experiment with uranium metals, a key component of a nuclear warhead. Iran insists that all breaches of the pact are easily reversible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran\u2019s intelligence minister has warned the West that his country could push for a nuclear<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n