(Adnkronos) – Italy is attempting to arrange talks in Rome between Iran and the United States because unless an accord is struck, Iran will keep trying to make a nuclear bomb, foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Monday.
“Iran is capable of producing a nuclear bomb, it was almost there and it will try again if we don’t reach an agreement to defuse this peril,” Tajani told a TV channel Canale Cinque news programme.
“We need to do a lot of work,” Tajani said, underlining Italy’s part in the negotiation process.
“We playing an important role, also in trying and organise a meeting between Iran and the United States, hopefully in Rome,” said Tajani, recalling that talks “aimed at stabilising the (Mideast) region” have already taken place twice in the Italian capital.
Stability in the Middle East is also crucial to resolving the devastating 20-month-old Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Tajani argued.
“What happens in Israel and Gaza also depends enormously on Iran. We know very well that Hamas is backed by Iran,” he said.
US officials say that strikes on three key Iranian nuclear sites on 22 June have devastated the country’s nuclear programme. However, Rafael Grossi, head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency, said at the weekend that Iran has the capacity to start enriching uranium again – for a possible atomic bomb – “in a matter of months”.
Independent experts analysing commercial satellite imagery have contradicted US president Donald Trump’s claims that the US strikes “completely obliterated” Iran’s Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear plants, saying the nation’s long-running nuclear enterprise is far from destroyed.
Western governments are scrambling to find out whether Iran’s 9 tonnes of enriched uranium – over 400kg enriched to close to weapons grade – was destroyed by the US strikes and what may have become of it.
Israel attacked nuclear and military sites in Iran on 13 June, claiming Iran was close to building a nuclear weapon.
