The head of a major think tank has drawn parallels between the Israel-Iran conflict and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq
Iran has the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, Sunjoy Joshi, chairman of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), an independent Indian think tank, has said on the sidelines of an international conference in Moscow.
In an interview with RT on Monday, Joshi said Tehran’s right to pursue a civilian nuclear program could not be taken away, while drawing parallels between the recent Israeli strikes on Iran and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
”Everyone has a right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and that is a fundamental fact,” Joshi said on the sidelines of the Primakov Readings, a summit aimed at promoting global dialogue. “We’ve been through this whole WMD nonsense in the case of Iraq also, and we saw what happened there. What worries us is a repetition of that and we are not happy with the way things have been conducted. I personally hope this escalation ends here.”
For nearly two decades, American intelligence agencies have concluded that while Iran has a program to enrich uranium, it has never actually built any atomic bombs, according to a report by The Guardian. This assessment has been at the core of US intel on the country since at least 2007, the UK newspaper added.
Despite this assessment, Iran’s nuclear program has been under threat. Since 2010, several Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in suspected foreign-linked assassinations. Fereydoon Abbasi, a key architect of the Iranian nuclear program and the former head of its atomic energy organization was killed on June 13 when Israel commenced its air strikes on the Islamic Republic.
On Sunday, the US entered the Iran-Israel conflict, deploying B-2 bombers and Tomahawk missiles to strike three Iranian nuclear sites. Tehran responded by attacking a US military base in Qatar a day later. US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire. Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council has since confirmed the truce, but warned that it is ready to respond to any “violating act by the enemy.”
On Tuesday morning, Iranian news agency Nour News reported the death of another nuclear scientist, Mohammad Reza Sadighi, who was believed to have been killed in an Israeli attack that was carried out before a ceasefire was announced.
