A top Iranian lawmaker and cleric said that the country’s uranium enrichment program could allow it to build a nuclear weapon “in two weeks” in order to “put down Israel,” according to multiple reports in the Farsi language press.
Iranian lawmaker and cleric Muhammad Nabavian said on Friday that Iran would be able to build a nuclear bomb in “two weeks” if it gets “access to 270 kilograms of 20 percent [enriched uranium], 10 tons of 5 percent, and 20 thousand centrifuges,” according to reports on Iran’s Radio Farda and in Fararu.
“We are not looking for a nuclear bomb, but having a nuclear bomb is necessary to put down Israel,” Nabavian said, according to an independent translation of his remarks provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
Nabavian went on to claim that President Barack Obama had courted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the lead up to nuclear negotiations with the West last year.
Nabavian said Rouhani revealed in a private meeting that the U.S. president reached out to his Iranian counterpart on at least five separate occasions prior to Rouhani’s visit last year to New York City.
Rouhani ultimately refused to meet with Obama at the time despite the private overtures.
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