Iranian spies claim to have 'treasure trove' of Israeli nuclear files

Tehran says it will go public with intelligence on undeclared weapons programme

Iranian Minister of Intelligence Esmail Khatib. Iran is under pressure from US President Donald Trump to strike a deal on its own nuclear programme. AP

Iran says it has acquired a "treasure trove” of information about Israel’s atomic weapons – as it faces pressure over its own nuclear activities.

Iran's Minister of Intelligence Esmail Khatib said his department has "an important treasury of strategic, operational and scientific intelligence" belonging to Israel, which he said was "transferred into the country with God's help”.

Israel is widely assumed to possess atomic weapons but maintains a policy of "nuclear ambiguity" by neither confirming nor denying their existence. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks nuclear stockpiles, estimates that Israel has 90 warheads.

Mr Khatib claimed that thousands of pages of documents had been obtained and said they would be made public soon. Among them are documents related to the United States, Europe and other countries, he said, obtained through “infiltration” and “access to the sources”. He did not elaborate on the methods used.

"The transfer of this treasure trove was time-consuming and required security measures. Naturally, the transfer methods will remain confidential but the documents should be unveiled soon," Mr Khatib said on Sunday.

Israel has similarly targeted Iran before. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said agents had seized a huge "archive" of Iranian documents that showed Tehran had done more nuclear work than previously known.

The Israeli military is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons but does not publicly acknowledge their existence. AFP

Nuclear talks

The development comes as US President Donald Trump threatens military action against Iran if it does not come to an agreement over its nuclear programme. However, Mr Trump in April reportedly blocked a planned Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites in favour of negotiating a deal.

Iran and the US have had five rounds of talks across Europe and Oman over the deal but have so far failed to come to an agreement. European powers are expected to push for a resolution condemning Iran's behaviour at a meeting this week of the UN's atomic watchdog, the IAEA.

The talks, mediated by Oman, aim to replace the 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers that set restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief, before Mr Trump abandoned the accord in 2018, during his first term. Mr Trump has insisted that Iran must fully abandon its uranium enrichment programme, which has been at the centre of the decades-long dispute between the two sides.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week that abandoning uranium enrichment was "100 per cent" against Tehran's interests. Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that "the US plan does not even mention the lifting of sanctions".

He called it a sign of dishonesty, accusing the Americans of seeking to impose a "unilateral" agreement that Tehran would not accept. "The delusional US President should know better and change his approach if he is really looking for a deal," Mr Ghalibaf said.