No Nuclear Cooperation With North Korea

A lawmaker dismissed recent US allegations about nuclear cooperation between Iran and North Korea as part of Washington's Iranophobia campaign to justify its bellicose Iran stance.

"We have no nuclear relation or cooperation with any country outside the scope of the UN nuclear agency's monitoring and verification," Hossein Naqavi Hosseini told ICANA on Sunday.

"The Americans are trying to falsely convince the international community that the Islamic Republic is seeking nuclear weapons so they could step up their pressure and sanctions and achieve their goals," he added.

Naqavi Hosseini was responding to CIA Director Mike Pompeo's claim that Iranian and North Korean cooperation on nuclear weapons is "a real risk".

Pompeo made the accusation in his Wednesday address to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank in Washington.

AP quoted him as saying North Korea is moving "ever closer" to putting Americans at risk with a nuclear-tipped missile and that he believes leader Kim Jong-un will not rest until he is able to threaten multiple nuclear attacks against the US at the same time.

"North Korea is ever closer to being able to hold America at risk. I want everyone to understand that we are working diligently to make sure that a year from now I can still tell you that they are several months away from having that capacity. It's not a static time frame," Pompeo said.

"North Korea is a proliferation risk ... if they have nuclear weapons, or if Iran makes advances in their" nuclear abilities, "then many other countries" are "going to say me too!"

Despite his warning, Pompeo does not think a North Korean attack on the United States is imminent.

Iran denies ever having considered building a nuclear bomb and insists its nuclear program has always pursued civilian purposes.