Israel ‘only state in Middle East that actually has nukes’: Analysts denounce Bibi’s Iran WMD claim
RT | May 1, 2018
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is the wrong person to accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons as his country has repeatedly refused to join any non-proliferation treaties which equates it to North Korea, Middle East experts told RT.
Israel and its PM “are in no position to accuse Iran of anything, they’re not part of the nuclear deal, they’re not even a member [of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty],” said Hamed Mousavi, Professor of Political Science at the University of Tehran.
The analyst then commented on Netanyahu’s well-rehearsed Monday show, in which he claimed Israel has incriminating evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear program in violation of the milestone 2015 deal. He noted the only entity in the world authorized to declare Iranian compliance or non-compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal is the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Mousavi went further, saying Netanyahu was “a serial liar,” also citing a 2011 microphone leak incident, in which former French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly spoke lowly of the Israeli premier.
“I can’t stand him,” he told Barack Obama, in what was believed to be a confidential discussion. The Frenchman also accused Netanyahu of constantly lying. Obama’s reply was: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”
“And we also have to remember the timing, I mean, this is coming less than two weeks before Trump makes a decision regarding if the United States wants to stay in the deal,” the expert said, noting that “Israel is the only regime in the region that actually has nuclear weapons.”
Israel is believed to possess nuclear weapons, though its officials have never officially denied nor admitted to having weapons of mass destruction. On the latest occasion, nuclear weapon proliferation experts Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen claimed in the renowned Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists back in 2013 that the Jewish state stopped producing nuclear warheads back in 2004 once it reached around 80 projectiles.
However, the country can easily double its arsenal since it has enough fissile material to build at least another 115 munitions, experts say.
In Mousavi’s view, if Donald Trump decides to come out of the nuclear accord, it would kill the deal. Iran could not afford complying with it because of US threats to sanction any company – not only American ones – that do business with the Islamic Republic. “And I think this is what Israel wants,” he concluded.
Dr. Maged Botros, Head of Political Science department at Helwan University in Egypt, emphasized that Netanyahu “repeatedly refused to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty,” which puts it “in the same position as North Korea.”
Netanyahu’s presentation has been “a setup for [US President Donald] Trump,” Botros said, suggesting the Israeli allegations could be a solution for the US President to throw away the 2015 deal.
The Egyptian expert recalled former US State Secretary Colin Powell, who claimed back in 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. “It proved to be false, now the history repeats itself,” he said.
North Korea accused Israel of having a nuclear arsenal last year, calling it a threat to peace in the Middle East. “Israel is the only illegal possessor of nukes in the Middle East under the patronage of the US. However, Israel vociferated about the nuclear deterrence of the DPRK, slandering it, whenever an opportunity presented itself,” the Foreign Ministry said at the time.
Read more:
‘Infamous liar’: Iran blasts Netanyahu for claims Tehran had nuclear weapons program
Withdrawing US troops from S. Korea may be discussed with allies & North – Mattis
RT | April 28, 2018
The withdrawal of some 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea may be on the table in future negotiations between the US and North Korea, US Defense Secretary James Mattis said on the heels of a landmark inter-Korean summit.
Asked if US forces will remain in South Korea provided Seoul and Pyongyang replace their 1953 truce with a formal peace treaty, Mattis indicated that the continued US military presence in South Korea may become a part of the bargain with the North.
“Well, that’s part of the issues that we’ll be discussing in the negotiations with our allies first and, of course, with North Korea,” he said, speaking alongside Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak at the Pentagon on Friday.
Mattis then appeared to take a step back, saying that “for now, we have to go along with the process… and not try to make preconditions or presumptions about how it’s going to go.”
Responding to the question of whether he trusts North Korea’s assertions of a new-found aim for peace and denuclearization, Mattis noted that “we are optimistic right now that there’s opportunity that we have never enjoyed since 1950 [the beginning of the Korean war],” but added that he doesn’t have “a crystal ball” to foretell where the current rapprochement leads.
The statement comes in the wake of Friday’s historic meeting between North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, where they signed a declaration reiterating their commitment to the complete denuclearization of the whole peninsula and expressed hope that they can seal a peace accord by the end of the year through multi-party negotiations involving Washington and, possibly, Beijing.
Pyongyang previously indicated that it would only be ready to disarm if its safety is guaranteed and saber-rattling by the US, which has held numerous drills with South Korea at the North Korean border over the years, stops.
While it is the first official acknowledgment by Washington that its large garrison stationed in South Korea may become a concession to Pyongyang, US President Donald Trump reportedly touted the idea during a fundraiser in March. At the time, Trump linked the prospect of the US troops withdrawal to economic issues.
“We have a very big trade deficit with them [South Korea], and we protect them. We lose money on trade, and we lose money on the military. We have right now 32,000 soldiers on the border between North and South Korea. Let’s see what happens,” he said, The Washington Post reported, citing an audio recording of the meeting.
The US president, who is expected to hold his own summit with the North Korean leader in May or June, offered cautious praise of the talks, noting on Twitter that “good things are happening, but only time will tell.”
READ MORE:
Peace breaks out on the Korean peninsula despite – not because of – Washington hawks
Certain states play into hands of terrorists by using military force: Russia president

Press TV – April 25, 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin says certain countries play into the hands of terrorists and endanger regional security by bypassing international law and resorting to military force.
Putin made the remarks in a greeting message to the participants in a security conference in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on Wednesday.
He stressed that the policy of unilateralism practiced by certain states is hindering efforts to ensure regional and global security.
“Some members of the international community have been increasingly trying to ignore the generally recognized norms and principles of the international law and resort to the use of military force bypassing the UN Security Council and refuse to hold talks as a key tool of resolving international disputes,” he said.
“This, in its turn, generates political and social instability and plays into the hands of terrorism, extremism and transnational crime, leading to the escalation of local conflicts and crises,” he added.
Earlier this month, the US, Britain and France launched a coordinated missile attack against sites and research facilities near Damascus and Homs with the purported goal of paralyzing the Syrian government’s “capability” to produce chemical arms.
The trio blamed the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a suspected gas attack in the Damascus suburb town of Douma on April 7.
Moscow said it has “irrefutable” evidence that the Douma incident was a “false flag” operation orchestrated by British spy services.
Elsewhere in his message, Putin expressed Russia’s readiness to engage in close security cooperation with foreign partners in both multilateral and bilateral formats.
The Russian president further noted that the Sochi conference will provide a good opportunity to discuss the options for countering various threats and challenges to international security.
The two-day event has gathered senior officials from more than 100 countries. Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani is among the participants and is set to address the conference.
US building huge drone base in Niger
Press TV – April 24, 2018
The US military has started construction for a huge military base in the African country of Niger, which officials say will be used for airstrikes and intelligence operations by unmanned aircraft in West Africa.
US Air Force personnel have been constructing hangars and runways for drones in central Niger for some time now, The Associated Press reported Monday, stating that the base was being built outside of Agadez upon a request by Niger’s government.
It was not clear how many drones the USAF was going to deploy to the base, which unnamed officials said was going to be the “largest troop labor construction project in US history” with an estimated cost of more than $110 million.
The report did not mention how the base was going to help American military plans in Africa, which for the large part have remained secret.
Niger has been playing a key role in those plans as the Pentagon has doubled the number of its troops in the country to around 800 over the past few years.
Additionally, US Army Green Berets have been training Nigerien military forces near the nascent military base.
“Already the US military presence here is the second largest in Africa, behind the sole permanent US base on the continent, in the tiny nation of Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa,” the AP noted.
More light is expected to be shed on the US military’s missions in Niger once the Pentagon concludes a high-profile investigation into a deadly ambush in October of last year that killed four American soldiers near Niger’s border with Mali.
It was a month after this attack that Nigerien Defense Minister Kalla Mountari said his country was open to allowing US drone strikes against terror outfits such as Daesh.
The growing US presence in Niger has stirred concern among the officials of the poor, former French colony.
“We are afraid of falling back into the same situation as in Afghanistan, with many mistakes made by American soldiers who did not always know the difference between a wedding ceremony and a training of terrorist groups,” Nigerian government official Amadou Roufai told AP.
According to the report, the US will use the base to operate the MQ-9 Reaper drone, arguably the most advanced drone in the Pentagon’s arsenal.
With a range of around 1,150 miles (1850km), the aircraft can provide strike support and intelligence gathering capabilities across West and North Africa.
The aircraft can carry GBU-12 Paveway II bombs and four Hellfire air-to-ground anti-armor and anti-personnel missiles.
Once completed, the base would add to the US military’s inventory of over 800 bases in more than 70 countries.
A Furtive Glance at the US’s Ongoing War Preparations Against Russia
By Arkady SAVITSKY | Strategic Culture Foundation | 24.04.2018
While the world’s attention is riveted on Syria, the US is significantly boosting its forces in Europe. And these are not just divisions streaming in to take part in some exercises that will leave once those are over. This is a serious buildup to create a potentially offensive posture. The beefing up of the US forces is taking place amid preparations for a Russia-US summit. That’s a rather peculiar background for the event, to put it mildly!
The 4th Combat Aviation Brigade and the 4th Infantry Division will deploy to Europe as part of its Operation Atlantic Resolve. Based in Germany, the forces will participate in multiple exercises, most of which will be held very near the Russian border in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the Baltic States. The Army is considering deploying an entire division in a Reforger type of exercise, with troops coming over to use the pre-positioned hardware. Those forces could potentially see a surge, with a division-level deployment in late 2018 or 2019.
The plans include the creation of a rear-area operations command to be hosted by Germany. Another command is planned that will ensure mobility in the North Atlantic shipping lanes. A “military Schengen” to allow easy movement across borders is under consideration. NATO is rotating four battalion-size, combat-ready, air-power-supported battle groups throughout Poland — which is hosting 800 American troops — and the Baltic States.
In February, the US Army held the largest artillery exercise in Europe since the Cold War. The event was dubbed Dynamic Front 18 and involved seven rocket-launching systems, 94 artillery pieces, including eight German Panzerhaubitze 2000 armored howitzers, 14 British L118 light guns, and 18 US M777 155 mm howitzers.
The US military command is weighing the option of keeping the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group in the Mediterranean, the European command’s area of responsibility, instead of deploying it to the Middle East, which is under the control of Central Command. The group left Norfolk on April 11. This move would be intended to “check Russia,” freeing other American naval assets to carry out missions in the Baltic and the Black Sea. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee on April 12 that he was studying the possibility of shaking up his department’s employment of carrier groups. The rotational deployments have been increased from the traditional six to ten months. A large number of US ships are concentrated in the vicinity of Syria.
Poland will host Anakonda 2018, the largest ever NATO military exercise, the scale of which is truly exceptional this year. It will involve about 100,000 troops, 5,000 vehicles, 150 aircraft, and 45 warships. The event was much smaller two years ago. The scenario is based on the premise of a surprise attack against Russia. Obviously this huge force will be assembled for offensive, not defensive operations. One hundred thousand troops, just imagine! This is the most flagrant violation of the NATO-Russia Founding Act, signed between NATO and Russia in 1997, which contains a passage about NATO refraining from the “stationing of substantial combat forces.”
Meanwhile, around 3,600 American soldiers have landed in Jordan. They are participating in the two-week US-Jordanian exercise, Eager Lion, which kicked off on April 15. The training event is a drill for AV-8B Harriers, MV-22 Ospreys, and attack helicopters. It follows the US, UK, and French air strikes on Syria. The situation in southern Syria is fraught with conflict, which might easily pull in US and Russian armed forces.
In his remarks about a possible Russia-US summit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that he is confident Russian and American military leaders will prevent an armed conflict. US officials have said many times they are ready to do anything to keep hostilities from erupting. Well, that’s what they say, but actions speak louder than words. Forces are amassing that are poised for attack. The US deployments cannot be seen as anything other than war preparations that are already well underway, and Moscow has to be doubly vigilant.
The two nations’ leaders will have a host of urgent issues to discuss, but moving to tame the heightened tensions would be a step in the right direction. Some things could be done without delay, reviving some existing agreements that have been undeservedly forgotten for instance, such as the 1989 Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities Agreement or the Incidents at Sea (INCSEA) agreement of 1972. The INCSEA stood both parties in good stead, preventing a military clash between the Soviet and US navies during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. It can do so again in the same region.
Provocative military deployments in Europe are hardly the way to create a propitious environment for a summit. Nor do they enhance the security of the United States. But they are taking place, poisoning the atmosphere and creating a big problem.
US struggling to handle excess plutonium

The Nevada Radioactive Waste Dump (File photo)
Press TV – April 24, 2018
The United States is struggling to handle the excessive amounts of plutonium generated at the cores of its many retired nuclear reactors, according to a new report, raising fears that it might end up in the wrong hands.
Today, there are some 54 metric tons of surplus plutonium stored in nuclear facilities the US Department of Energy operates around the country, according to Reuters.
In Pantex, a plant located near Amarillo, Texas, the surplus plutonium has long exceeded the 20,000 cores, also known as “pits,” that regulations allow such facilities to store in their temporary storage facility.
That means a mishap in the process, which is mostly done manually by contract workers, can trigger massive nuclear explosions.
While in the past the US simply used the leftover plutonium to produce more nuclear munitions, it is now obliged under a 2010 treaty with Russia to keep its arsenal under 1,550 warheads.
Moscow and Washington have also agreed in a separate agreement to render unusable for weapons 34 metric tons of plutonium.
This helps the two sides to keep the deadly material out of reach for terrorists and prevent nuclear proliferation. According to experts, terrorists would only need 11 pounds (5 kg) or less plutonium to make a bomb.
According to data by the US Energy Department, collectively the two countries have 68 metric tons of plutonium designated for destruction, enough to make 17,000 nuclear weapons.
US President Donald Trump’s desire to dismantle older warheads and refill them with more lethal nuclear payloads is another factor that has put American nuclear authorities under immense pressure to get rid of the country’s plutonium stockpile and make room for more.
Then there’s the problem of burying the material, a long and complex process that involves digging repositories and making them impenetrable to make sure the plutonium remains out of reach as it slowly passes its radioactive half-life of 24,000 years.
This is while Washington has not even started to take necessary measures to acquire additional space for burying plutonium more than 2,000 feet (610 meters) below ground, the depth considered safe.
“We are in a much more dangerous situation today than we were in the Cold War,” William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told Reuters.
Russia Urges US Military to Scale Back in Korean Peninsula
teleSUR | April 21, 2018
Russia is welcoming North Korea’s decision to suspend nuclear and missile tests, while simultaneously urging the United States and South Korea to scale back on their own military activities in the peninsula.
In a statement released Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said: “We consider this decision to be an important step toward further easing of tensions on the Korean peninsula and the strengthening of positive trends on settlement of the Northeast Asian situation.
“We are urging the United States and the Republic of Korea to take adequate accommodating steps aimed at slowing down military activities in the region and reaching mutually acceptable agreements with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the upcoming intra-Korean and U.S.-North Korean summits.”
According to Russian state press agency TASS, Moscow is hoping the situation proceeds along the path originally suggested by Russia and China.
North Korea announced early Saturday that it was suspending all nuclear and missile tests, and focusing its development instead on socialist economic development and peace.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country no longer needs to conduct tests because it has completed its goal of developing nuclear weapons.
“The northern nuclear test ground of the DPRK will be dismantled to transparently guarantee the discontinuance of the nuclear test,” North Korean state news agency KCNA said.
Kim is scheduled to hold talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in May, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in next week.
He has recently held meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the CIA’s head and Secretary of State appointee, Mike Pompeo.
Kim Jong-un: No need for further nuclear & missile tests
RT | April 20, 2018
North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs have allowed the country to secure strategic stability and peace, so there is no need for additional missile and nuke tests anymore, Kim Jong-un has proclaimed.
“From April 21, 2018, nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile tests will be discontinued,” the Korean Central News Agency cited Kim as saying, at a plenary meeting of the central committee of the ruling Worker’s Party of Korea (WPK).
“North Korea’s nuclear test center will be discarded in order to ensure the transparency of the nuclear test suspension,” KCNA added.
Announcing the country’s new course, the ruling party has declared that North Korea “will never use nuclear weapons, unless there is nuclear threat or nuclear provocation to our country, and in no case we will proliferate nuclear weapons and nuclear technology.”
In the announcement, North Korea noted that the “suspension of nuclear testing is an important process for global nuclear disarmament.” Therefore, North Korea is willing to join international denuclearization efforts.
The extraordinary development comes just ahead of Kim’s meeting with the South Korean president Moon Jae-in later this month. The announcement also follows US Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo’s recent secret meeting with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is also preparing to meet Kim in the coming weeks and has, on a number of occasions, vowed that Washington will keep up its “maximum pressure” campaign on North Korea until it agrees to denuclearize.
“Our campaign of maximum pressure will continue until North Korea will denuclearize,” Trump said on Wednesday. “As I have said before, there is a bright path available to North Korea when it achieves denuclearization in a complete and verifiable and irreversible way. It will be a great day for them, it will be a great day for the world.”


