Ali Akbar Salehi (right) meets with the Secretary General of the IAEA

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) released a statement on Wednesday regarding the Iranian regime’s efforts to conceal the extent of its nuclear weapons program prior to the signing of the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 and the continued development of its nuclear program after the deal was signed.

Regime Concealed Nuclear Equipment

The NCRI statement contains damning quotes from a high-ranking regime official who confesses to concealing evidence of nuclear equipment. In an interview on Iranian state television on January 22, 2019, the regime’s head of the Atomic Agency Ali Akbar Salehi confessed that the mullahs had hidden some of the nuclear equipment banned by the agreement.

“We had bought similar tubes to the ones that go through them there,” he said, referring to nuclear equipment, “but I could not declare them at the time. Only one person knew about it in Iran.” Salehi went on to say. “Only the highest authority of the regime [Ali Khamenei] was aware of this and no one else … His Holiness had said that you should be careful about these people (P5+1). They are not trustworthy and won’t keep to their promises. Well, we had to work smartly and intelligently. In addition to not breaking the bridges behind us, we also had to build a bridge that would enable us to go faster if we were to go back. It was a tube of two or three centimeters in diameter and three or four meters long … We had bought similar tubes, the same quantity, we were told to fill the main tubes with cement, so we poured cement in those tubes … but we did not say that we had other tubes because if we did, they would have said, ‘Sir, pour cement in those as well. We are going to use the same tubes now. Now we have those tubes.’”

The statement also quotes from another interview given by Salehi. In a January 30th interview with the state-run IRNA news agency, Salehi, said, “We had some substitute parts and bought some more, and these were not against the rules. There was no need to announce that we have substitute tubes.” Salehi explained that the subterfuge and concealment of equipment were done by order of regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He continued: “We have to be alert and calculate the process of possible return. In other words, we should not eliminate all the bridges behind us.”

According to the NCRI statement, Salehi’s words make it clear that the regime entered into the nuclear deal with the intention of falsifying and concealing its activities and gaining additional opportunities to develop a nuclear weapon.

Previous Warnings by the NCRI

When the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was signed, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the NCRI, warned that the mullahs had no intention of ceasing their nuclear ambitions. In a July 14, 2015 statement, she said, “This agreement does not close the mullahs’ path to deception and access to a nuclear bomb.”

Mrs. Rajavi also warned about Khamenei’s ill intentions on November 24, 2013, saying, “Any leniency, hesitancy, and concessions by the international community will prompt Khamenei to once again move toward manufacturing through deception and cheating.”

Rouhani’s Confessions

The NCRI statement also noted that regime President Hassan Rouhani mentioned the regime’s nuclear program in his book, “National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy,” which also alluded to the MEK’s discovery of the mullahs’ nuclear program and subsequent sanctions. He wrote: “In 2002, the activities were moving in a calm atmosphere, but the Mujahedin [MEK] suddenly made a lot of noise by making false accusations… while our Atomic Energy Organization wanted to … notify the IAEA in a fait accompli.”

Rouhani furthered this confession in a public speech, in which he “revealed how Teheran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear programme was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002,” according to a March 5, 2006 article in the Sunday Telegraph.

Staff Writer