Iranian Official Raises Alarm to UN Over Israel's Thinly Veiled Nuclear Threats

Iran's top envoy to the United Nations this week sent a letter to the UN Security Council and Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to register his alarm at a recent thinly-veiled nuclear threat by a high-ranking Israeli official.

UN Ambassador Gholam Ali Khoshrou, who wrote the missive, said that the nuclear threats were an example of the "regime's aggressive nature."

The threats in question were made earlier this month in Jerusalem by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. When asked, "Is dealing with a threat like Iran something democracies are not structured well to do?" the minister directly referenced the U.S. nuclear bombing of Japan during World War II.

As shown in this video, Yaalon stated:

I do remember the story of President Truman was asked, How do feel after deciding to launch the nuclear bombs [at] Nagasaki and Hiroshima, causing at the end the fatalities of 200,000 casualties? And he said, When I heard from my officers that the alternative is a long war with Japan, with potential fatalities of a couple of millions, I saw it was a moral decision.

We are not there yet. But that [is] what I'm talking about. Certain steps in cases in which we feel like we don't have the answer by surgical operations or something like that.

During his remarks, Yaalon also threatened to attack civilian neighborhoods in Lebanon and Gaza, as reported earlier this month in The Electronic Intifada.

Khoshrou expressed his concern about these statements in his letter to the UN and asked the Security Council to condemn the threats, according to Fars News Agency.

Koshrou wrote that the Israeli official's "implied reference to the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic like what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and also his threats against the Lebanese civilians, including the women and children, shows more than ever the regime's aggressive nature."

"The impudent remarks," the letter continued, "have challenged the primary principles ruling the armed conflicts and the international humanitarian rights and weaken the international peace and security and therefore, the UNSC is expected to condemn these irresponsible remarks and clear threats of using nuclear bomb and massacre of civilians."

Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that refuses to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and is believed to possess up to 200 warheads, in what has been called the country's "worst-kept secret."

There is no evidence that Iran possesses or plans to build an atom bomb.