Foreign Secretary James Cleverly warned today that the threat from Iran’s nuclear program is “more advanced than ever.”
At the Manama Dialogue international security conference in Bahrain, the British Foreign Secretary warned of Russian and Iranian security threats in the Middle East.
Cleverly also denounced Russia’s use of Iranian-supplied drones to attack civilians in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian army provided this month evidence that Russia was using Iranian Mohajer-6 spy drones, capable of firing rockets, and is analyzing ‘kamikaze’ drones of possible Iranian origin that implode on impact.
The Foreign Secretary said: “Today, the Iranian nuclear program is more advanced than ever and the regime has resorted to selling Russia the armed drones that are currently killing civilians in Ukraine.
“As its people demonstrate against decades of oppression, Iran’s rulers are wreaking bloodshed and destruction across the region and as far away as Kyiv.
“Britain is determined to work together with our friends to counter the Iranian threat, interdict the smuggling of conventional weapons and prevent the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities.”
James Cleverly speaks in the House of Commons in London, Great Britain, on November 16, 2022.
Iranians living in Ukraine protest against Iran’s government and drone deliveries to Russia
A Shahed 129 drone in Tehran, 2016, during celebrations for the anniversary of the Islamic revolution
Iran and Russia have a complex historical relationship, but today they share a military and economic alliance motivated by mutual sanctions by Western nations.
Iran has been developing nuclear technology since 1957, backed at first by the Americans’Atoms for Peace‘ program that provided adopters with nuclear technology in exchange for a commitment to use it solely for civilian purposes.
Iran claims its nuclear program is peaceful, enriching uranium to levels consistent with fuel needed for power plants.
But on Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) censured Iran for “insufficient cooperation” with its investigations into traces of uranium found at undeclared sites.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told a news conference on Wednesday that there is “a mass of activity that we know nothing about.”
In 2015, Iran and several world powers signed an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from harsh sanctions.
President Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2018, although both countries have since indicated their intention to return to the original agreement.
Cleverly warned in Bahrain on Saturday that Iranian weapons threaten security in the Middle East and beyond, pointing to the Iranian-made attack drones that Russia uses to attack Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure as an example of its influence.
“Weapons supplied by Iran threaten the entire region,” the Braintree MP told the Manama Dialogue.
Earlier this month, US officials warned that Iran was preparing to send an estimated 1,000 additional weapons, including drones and missiles, to Russia to support its war, though Iran has previously denied that it supplied Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, MI5 director general Ken McCallum has revealed that Iranian intelligence agents have been targeting people in the UK whom they consider to be enemies of the regime.
He said the security service had identified at least 10 such potential threats since January, including “ambitions” to kidnap or even kill.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during talks with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on the situation of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants and Iran’s continued unwillingness to commit to the terms of the nuclear deal JCPOA
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said Iranian drone makers Shahed Aviation Industries and Qods Aviation Industries “are key to the regime’s ongoing activities aimed at destabilizing international peace and security.”
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi (right) meets with Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev (left) in Tehran on November 9, 2022.
Earlier this week, the UK imposed a new round of sanctions on Iranian officials linked to the crackdown on protests that erupted following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained for allegedly failing to follow Islamic laws of the country. dress code.
Ms. Amini was arrested by Iran’s morality police in Tehran on September 13 and beaten, suffered a heart attack in custody and died.
Iran’s regime has faced numerous protests since the 1979 Iranian revolution, which replaced the secular Pahlavi-allied dynasty with an authoritarian theocracy under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini.
On Thursday, anti-regime protesters torched Khomeini’s ancestral home in the western province of Markazi.