(MENAFN) Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deliberately misleading successive U.S. administrations about Tehran’s nuclear intentions. In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson aired on Monday, Pezeshkian claimed Netanyahu has been spreading false claims since the 1980s that Iran seeks to develop nuclear weapons.

“It was Netanyahu, even as early as 1984 when he was Israel’s envoy to the UN, who began promoting this false idea that Iran wants a nuclear bomb,” Pezeshkian said. He alleged that every U.S. president since then has been influenced by this narrative. The Iranian leader insisted that his country has never pursued nuclear weapons and cited a religious decree from Iran’s supreme leader, as well as findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to support his statement.

Pezeshkian also accused Israel of sabotaging diplomatic efforts between Iran and the U.S. by launching a major strike on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure on June 13. “We were in the middle of negotiations with the U.S. and were told there would be no attack if Israel wasn’t involved,” he said. “Then suddenly, Israel struck, destroying diplomacy.”

While expressing Iran’s willingness to engage in discussions about international oversight of its nuclear program, Pezeshkian said recent Israeli attacks have made monitoring efforts unfeasible. “We don’t currently have access to the sites to assess the damage,” he added.

Netanyahu has long maintained that Iran poses a nuclear threat, famously displaying a cartoon bomb diagram at the UN in 2012 to dramatize Iran’s alleged progress toward developing a weapon. He also strongly opposed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which the U.S. later abandoned under President Donald Trump.

Prior to last month’s 12-day conflict, the U.S. and Iran had been engaged in talks, during which Washington demanded that Tehran cease all uranium enrichment. Iran rejected this condition, asserting that enriched uranium is essential for its civilian energy needs.

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