Tel Aviv:
Israel stated Saturday the international neighborhood need to be alarmed by hardliner Ebrahim Raisi’s election as Iranian president simply because of his commitment to a “rapidly advancing military nuclear program”.
Raisi’s election “makes clear Iran’s true malign intentions, and should prompt grave concern among the international community”, foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat wrote on Twitter.
3/4 An extremist figure, committed to Iran’s quickly advancing military nuclear plan, his election tends to make clear Iran’s correct malign intentions, and need to prompt grave concern amongst the international neighborhood.
— Lior Haiat 🇮🇱 (@LiorHaiat) June 19, 2021
Iran has “elected its most extremist president to date”, he stated following Friday’s vote. Raisi is “committed to Iran’s rapidly advancing military nuclear program”.
Israel fiercely opposes the 2015 nuclear deal among Tehran and world powers that supplied its arch-foe Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
It argues the deal, from which US President Donald Trump withdrew 3 years later, could allow the Islamic republic to create nuclear arms.
Iran has constantly denied looking for a nuclear weapon.
Raisi, an ultraconservative cleric, is set to take more than at a crucial time as Iran seeks to salvage the tattered deal and no cost itself from punishing US sanctions.
Israel’s newly sworn-in Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has named efforts to revive the deal a “mistake that will give one of the darkest regimes legitimacy”.
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