SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Iran says US, Israel are nuclear 'threat' to region
Tehran, Aug 6 (AFP) Aug 06, 2020
Iran's foreign minister said Thursday that the US and its ally Israel constitute a nuclear threat to the Middle East, on the 75th anniversary of the atomic attack on Hiroshima.

"Today, US & Israeli nukes threaten our region," Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter.

The first atomic bomb deployed in warfare was dropped on the western city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 by the US B-29 bomber Enola Gay, killing about 140,000 people.

"75 years ago today, the US gained the infamy of becoming the 1st and ONLY user of nuclear weapons. And against innocents," Zarif said.

Israel is believed to be the Middle East's sole nuclear-armed power, though it has never acknowledged it.

Zarif's words come in a context of tensions between Tehran and Washington, which unilaterally pulled out of a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and reimposed sanctions.

The US and Israel accuse Iran of being set on developing a nuclear bomb, a charge always denied by Tehran.

Iran and the US came to the brink of direct confrontation in January, when a US drone strike killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Iraq.

"It's long overdue to end the nuclear nightmare & the MAD doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction," Zarif added, alluding to a Cold War theory that the threat of a nuclear holocaust generates a disincentive for two nuclear armed powers to go to war.

Washington and Tehran have had no formal diplomatic relations since 1980.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Perseverance rover cleared for long distance Mars exploration
Origami style lunar rover wheel expands to climb steep caves
How to pick the right web testing framework for your project

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Conventional photon entanglement reveals thousands of hidden topologies in high dimensions
Bilayer tin oxide layer boosts back contact perovskite solar cell efficiency and stability
Brain like chips could cut AI power demand

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
BlackSky accelerates Gen-3 satellite into full commercial service in three weeks
Leonardo DRS space radio completes first secure on orbit data transport test
Eutelsat Network Solutions to lead global rollout of Intellian OW7MP manpack SATCOM terminal

24/7 News Coverage
Deep ocean quakes linked to Antarctic phytoplankton surges
Ocean warming drove past Greenland ice stream retreat
Insect radar survey finds vast summer air traffic above United States



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.