Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar slammed the Islamic Republic of Iran on Friday, saying it “continues to mislead the international community” with regard to its nuclear program.
“The Iranian regime is the same regime,” he tweeted.
“The attacks on the IAEA and its Director General, only because they determined Iran is in breach of its obligations and is in a state of non-compliance, add insult to injury,” Sa’ar continued.
The minister said that Israel’s preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear and military targets on June 13 came “at the last possible moment against an imminent threat against it, the region, and the international community.”
He stressed that Tehran continues to call for the annihilation of the Jewish state, and urged the international community to do everything in its power to prevent “the world’s most extreme regime” from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Sa’ar’s tweet referenced Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said earlier that the Iranian parliament voted to halt cooperation with the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog “until the safety and security of our nuclear activities can be guaranteed.”
The United States attacked Iran’s three main nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan on June 22.
President Donald Trump insisted last week that the U.S. airstrikes obliterated the nuclear sites, with the one in Fordow constructed deep underground.
Trump emphasized the scale of the attack, stating, “I don’t believe they had a chance to get anything out because we acted fast,” a reference to enriched uranium.
Israel, he added, “is doing a report on it now, I understand. And I was told that they said it was total obliteration. You know, they have guys that go in there after the hit, and they say it was total obliteration.”
On Thursday, Araghchi admitted that the damage dealt to the nuclear sites was “serious,” adding that “a detailed assessment of the damage is being carried out by experts from the Atomic Energy Organization [of Iran].”
“Now, the discussion of demanding damages and the necessity of providing [for] them has been placed as one of the important issues on the country’s diplomatic agenda,” he told Iran’s state-run television.
Iran’s top diplomat added that the parliamentary bill freezing collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was approved by the country’s Guardian Council—a 12-member religious council with veto power over Iran’s legislative body—and was therefore binding.
“From now on, our relationship and cooperation with the [IAEA] will take a new form,” Araghchi said.
On Friday, the foreign minister accused the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s Director General Rafael Grossi of facilitating the “politically-motivated resolution against Iran,” referring to the agency’s declaration on June 12 that Iran was in violation of its non-proliferation commitments, the first such declaration in nearly two decades.
He went on to say that Grossi’s “insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent. Iran reserves the right to take any steps in defense of its interests, its people and its sovereignty.”
Araghchi denied on June 26 that Tehran was planning to restart talks with Washington next week.
Speaking to Iran’s state television, he said that the country was considering whether talks with the Trump administration were in its interest.
He said that once the assessment of the damages in the nuclear sites is completed, the future direction of Tehran’s diplomacy will be better formulated.