Iran to change nuclear doctrine if existence threatened, says adviser to supreme leader

DUBAI: Iran will change its nuclear doctrine if Israel threatens its existence, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said, the latest comment by an Iranian official that raises questions about what Tehran says is its peaceful nuclear programme.

Tehran has always said it had no plans to obtain nuclear weapons. Western governments suspect that it wants nuclear technology to build a bomb; its nuclear programme has been at the centre of a long-running dispute that has led to sanctions.

In April, in the middle of a tense standoff with Israel, which is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander also said Israeli threats could prompt Iran to change its nuclear doctrine.

“We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb but should Iran’s existence be threatened, there will be no choice but to change our military doctrine,” Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reported as saying by Iran’s Student News Network on Thursday.

In 2022, the same adviser said Iran was technically capable of making a nuclear bomb but had not yet decided whether to build one.

Khamenei, who has the final say in Tehran’s nuclear programme, banned the development of nuclear weapons in a fatwa, or religious edict, in the early 2000s.

He reiterated that in 2019, saying that building and stockpiling nuclear bombs was “wrong and using it is haram”, or religiously forbidden.