Hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the U.N. General Assembly and accused Iran of maintaining a secret warehouse for radioactive material in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif shot back, saying there should be more scrutiny on Israel's nuclear program.
Jabbing Netanyahu for using visual aids in his presentation, Zarif tweeted: "No arts & craft show will ever obfuscate that Israel is only regime in our region with a *secret* and *undeclared* nuclear weapons program – including an *actual atomic arsenal*."
"Time for Israel to fess up and open its illegal nuclear weapons program to international inspectors," Zarif continued.
According to the Islamic Republic News Agency, Zarif denounced Netanyahu's allegations as an "obscene charge," and called the Israeli prime minister a "liar who would not stop lying."
Zarif also argued that Israel has pushed the United States toward isolation.
"In recent days, we've seen how much the policies that Netanyahu has imposed on America have isolated them in the General Assembly and Security Council," IRNA quoted Zarif as saying. "Now see when they can pull America to this level of isolation how isolated they are themselves."
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi also attacked Netanyahu Thursday, saying that "the world will only laugh loudly at this type of false, meaningless and unnecessary speech and false shows."
A U.S. State Department official called on the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, to investigate Netanyahu's claims. In a statement, the official said it was "absolutely imperative that the IAEA fully exercise its authorities in order to provide confidence to the international community that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran."
At the end of the day's speeches at the General Assembly, Iran used its "right of reply" to rebut Netanyahu's accusations.
"His fallacies and his statement confirm his pathological tendency to tell monstrous lies and distort reality," said a representative of the Iranian delegation. "Exhibiting some photographs of Google Street View, today the Israeli showman claimed that he discovered new nuclear facilities in Iran. This is yet another false story."
Also Thursday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the U.S. had nothing to show for its appearance at the U.N. General Assembly this week, extending an exchange of insults with Tehran's archadversary.
U.S. President Donald Trump used his annual address to the General Assembly on Tuesday to denounce Iran as a "corrupt dictatorship" whose leaders "sow chaos, death and destruction," and told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that Washington was pursuing further sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
In his own General Assembly address, Rouhani suggested that Trump suffered from a "weakness of intellect" after having withdrawn the United States from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, a move that dismayed European allies of Washington.
