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Kamal Kharrazi, a foreign policy advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who also serves as the chairman of the Iranian Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, said in a July 17, 2022 interview on Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar) that Iran is now a nuclear threshold state and has the ability to produce a nuclear bomb. He explained that Iran can also rapidly raise its level of uranium enrichment to 90%. In addition, Kharrazi said that Iran has good relations with the UAE, but that the latter’s normalization of relations with Israel was a mistake, and that an Israeli attack on Iran from UAE territory would lead to direct retaliation against both the UAE and Israel. Moreover, Kharrazi said that Iran has been conducting military drills simulating attacks deep inside Israeli territory in the event that Israel attacks Iran’s "sensitive facilities", and he dismissed the idea of a Middle Eastern NATO-like alliance as "superficial."
Kamal Kharrazi: "It is no secret that we have become a nuclear threshold country. This is the reality. This is a fact. It is no secret that we have the required technological capabilities to produce a nuclear bomb. But we do not want that and have not decided to do so. In the past, we raised the level of uranium enrichment from 20% to 60% in a matter of days. We can simply raise this level to 90%. What we want is a Middle East that is free of nuclear weapons. This applies, first and foremost, to Israel and its nuclear weapons. With regard to the nuclear deal, there are questions about its benefit. So far, there have been no American guarantees for preserving the agreement, and this impedes any possible agreement.
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"The demand by the U.S. and other Western countries to negotiate about our missile program and regional policy is out of the question. We reject that, because it means surrender.
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"The talk about a 'NATO' for the Middle East constitutes nothing but a superficial idea. The Saudi foreign minister emphasized that.
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"We have good relations with the UAE, especially in the economic and commercial aspects. However, normalization of relations with Israel was a historic mistake. If Israel targets our national security from UAE territory, our response will be clear and public. This applies to all the other neighboring countries, in case they allow Israel to do so. Our response will be twofold – against those countries and directly against Israel. We have conducted extensive drills [simulating] attacks deep in Israeli territory if Israel decides to attack our sensitive facilities."
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