Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano addressed Netanyahu’s statements last week at the UN General Assembly, where the prime minister claimed the existence of an Iranian secret atomic warehouse.
Speaking at the the UN, Netanyahu was critical of IAEA’s failure to take action after his disclosure of the existence of an Iranian secret atomic archive.
“Months have passed. The IAEA has still not taken any action. It has not posed a single question to Iran. It has not demanded to inspect a single new site discovered in that secret archive.
“So, given this inaction, I decided to reveal today something else that we have shared with the IAEA and with a few intelligence agencies.”
Netanyahu went on assert “that Iran has another secret facility in Tehran—a secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.”
“In May, we exposed the site of Iran’s secret atomic archive, right here, in the Shorabad District of Tehran. Today I’m revealing the site of a second facility — Iran’s secret atomic warehouse. It’s right here, in the Turquzabad District of Tehran, just there, miles away,” Netanyahu said, referring to a map of Tehran.
Calling Amano “a good man,” Netanyahu challenged the IAEA director to “do the right thing.”
“Go inspect this atomic warehouse, immediately, before the Iranians finish clearing it out,” he said.
“And Mr. Amano, while you’re at it, inspect the other secret sites we told you about. Once and for all, tell the world the truth about Iran,” he added.
On Tuesday, Amano released a statement dismissing Netanyahu’s concerns, in which he asserted that the IAEA has checked “all the sites and locations in Iran which it needed to visit,” and that the IAEA "does not take any information at face value."
“The Agency uses all safeguards relevant information available to it but it does not take any information at face value. In line with established safeguards practices, all information obtained, including from third parties, is subject to rigorous review and assessed together with other available information to arrive at an independent assessment based on the Agency’s own expertise,” Amano said.
