Iran has warned Israel it is likely to review its nuclear stance if its atomic facilities are threatened, as tensions rise following the Islamic republic’s weekend drone and missile attack on Israel.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday that Tehran may “reconsider” its nuclear policy, which it has long insisted is purely peaceful but which western powers say has put it on the threshold of becoming a weapons state.
The warning was issued as the US and UK announced new sanctions on Iran’s drone programme in response to Saturday’s strike on Israel.
“Reconsidering the nuclear doctrine and policies of the Islamic republic of Iran . . . is probable and imaginable, if the fake Zionist regime threatens to attack our country’s nuclear centres,” said Major General Ahmad Haq Talab, who oversees the security of Iran’s nuclear installations.
His comments were published in the semi-official Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful military force.
Regime hardliners have previously threatened that, during periods of heightened tensions with the west, Iran could withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty, which governs countries’ nuclear facilities.
Haq Talab warned Israel that any aggression against Iran’s facilities would be reciprocated at Israel’s nuclear weapon sites — which the Jewish state has never acknowledged possessing.
Israel has pledged to respond to last weekend’s Iranian attack, in which Tehran fired more than 300 missiles and drones.
That assault prompted Washington on Thursday to announce sanctions on 16 individuals and two companies that aid the production of unmanned aerial vehicles, such as drones, in co-ordination with measures announced by the UK.
“We are committed to acting collectively to increase economic pressure on Iran,” US President Joe Biden said, adding that his administration “will not hesitate to take all necessary action” to hold Tehran accountable.
“Our allies and partners have or will issue additional sanctions and measures to restrict Iran’s destabilising military programmes,” Biden said.
Other curbs announced by the UK on Thursday included measures against Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiani, Iran’s defence minister, and institutions and personnel responsible for operational command of Iran’s armed forces.
Tehran said it launched last weekend’s attack — its first-ever direct assault on Israel from Iranian soil — in retaliation for a suspected Israeli air strike on its consulate building in Damascus, which killed seven Revolutionary Guards members, including two senior commanders.
The US and other western allies have been pressing Israel to show restraint amid fears that the hostilities between Iran and Israel risk triggering an all-out Middle East conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday: “I want to make it clear — we will make our own decisions, and the State of Israel will do everything necessary to defend itself.”
Israel has given no indication of the timing or scale of its response, while Iran has vowed to retaliate against any Israeli strike on the republic.
“We are on the edge of a regional war in the Middle East,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned at a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting on Thursday, as he called on Israel for “a restrained answer to the Iranians’ attack”.
Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened over the years to take action to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The US-based Arms Control Association said in a paper this week that targeting Iranian nuclear sites “would be a reckless and irresponsible escalation that increases the risk of a wider regional war . . . and is more likely to push Tehran to decide that developing nuclear weapons is necessary to deter future attacks”.
Tehran and Washington have been locked in a nuclear crisis since then president Donald Trump in 2018 unilaterally abandoned the deal that Tehran signed with world powers, imposing waves of sanctions on the republic.
Under the 2015 accord, Iran agreed limits on its nuclear activity and a strict International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring regime in return for sanctions relief.
But after Trump withdrew the US from the agreement, Tehran responded by aggressively ramping up its programme, installing advanced centrifuges and enriching uranium to a purity of 60 per cent — the highest-ever level in Iran.
Experts typically cite 90 per cent purity as weapons grade, but Iran has already taken the most difficult technical steps to reach that point.
Efforts by the Biden administration to revive the 2015 accord floundered and Iran has developed the capacity to produce enough fissile material required for a nuclear weapon in about two weeks.
In September, the US and Iran agreed to a prisoner exchange and Washington unfroze $6bn in Iranian oil money. It was hoped that the foes would build on those deals to agree to de-escalatory steps, including Iran capping its uranium enrichment.
But any hopes of progress were dashed by Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza. In the months since, Iran-backed militants have attacked Israel and US forces in the region as hostilities have intensified across the Middle East.
Israel has traded daily fire with Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant group and Iran’s most important proxy, and targeted Revolutionary Guards members in Syria.
The IAEA still has inspectors in Iran, but the UN watchdog and western governments have repeatedly accused Tehran of not co-operating with the agency.
Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami told reporters on Wednesday that the republic could be still committed to the 2015 nuclear agreement if other signatories met their promises to ease sanctions on Iran. He said the head of the IAEA would “soon” visit Iran to “update” mutual agreements.
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