Washington, December 22: Documents revealed last week that appear to show Tehran is working on a nuclear bomb trigger were “forged” by Washington, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told a US news network.
“They are all fabricated bunch of papers continuously being forged and disseminated by the American government,” Ahmadinejad told ABC News in an interview aired Monday when asked about the confidential documents first revealed in London’s The Times newspaper.
The obtained documents describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion.
The Times claimed that foreign intelligence agencies dated the documents to early 2007 — four years after Tehran was thought to have suspended its weapons programme.
Describing charges that Iran’s is continuing work on a clandestine nuclear weapons program as “a repetitive and tasteless joke,” Ahmadinejad said the reports were about a nuclear trigger were “fundamentally not true.”
US President Barack Obama’s senior advisor David Axelrod said Sunday that any accusation of Washington fabricating documents was “nonsense.”
“Nobody has any illusions about what the intent of the Iranian government is,” Axelrod told ABC’s “This Week,” but without citing any evidence to his allegations.
Ahmadinejad said on Friday that Iran was ready to strike a uranium enrichment deal if the United States and its allies stop making threats against Tehran.
Tehran insists its nuclear programme is solely for civilian purposes for its growing population and rejects accusations that it is covertly trying to develop a bomb.
—Agencies