Ex-Mossad chief says Iran not close to building nuclear bomb

Yossi Cohen, the head of the Israeli Mossad attends a Fourth of July Independence Day celebration at the residence of the US Ambassador to Israel in Herzilya Pituah on July 3, 2017 [HEIDI LEVINE/AFP via Getty Images]

Former chief of the Israeli foreign intelligence service (Mossad), Yossi Cohen, said yesterday that Iran is not close to obtaining a nuclear bomb, contradicting claims by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and others that Tehran is on the cusp of becoming a nuclear power.

“I think that at the end of the day, Iran is not close to reaching any nuclear weapons. It is no closer than before, and that’s thanks to the great effort we made,” Cohen said at the Jerusalem Post Conference.

“I think they have less support for what they do than in the past,” Cohen said.

He warned that if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, “Israel should be able to stop it on its own,” Cohen added.

“We have to develop the capabilities that allow us to be completely independent, and do what Israel did twice before,” referring to the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and the Syrian one in 2007.

Cohen described the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as “not comprehensive”, adding that it must be completely “reworded”.

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