BERLIN – The head of Iran’s navy announced on Thursday that the Islamic Republic will build nuclear submarines

“It’s a kind of neglecting if the Islamic Republic does not think about using nuclear propulsion in submarines… this domestic capability exists in the Defense Ministry regarding the production of submarines bigger than Fateh – and certainly, the developing of submarine propulsion is on the agenda of the Navy,” Rear Adm. Khanzadi said, according to a report by the state-controlled Mehr news agency.

Khanzadi said that “None of the international pacts ban using peaceful nuclear energy, but the peace we are talking about doesn’t find meaning without maintaining defense readiness.”

He continued that “when there is no deterrence and readiness for a defense, no peace and stability will be established – and so the Armed Forces of the country are present to ensure sustainable peace.”

Writing in the National Interest online in early April, Caleb Larson said that in 2018, Iran notified the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that it was seeking to “construct naval nuclear propulsion in the future.”

He noted that “To this day, only a handful of countries are in the nuclear submarine club – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and India (although it should be pointed out that the Indian nuclear submarines are on lease from Russia, with the option of purchase after the lease is up).” Larson wrote that “Iran would likely beg, borrow or steal tech from another country to have any chance of a viable nuclear sub.”

The Jerusalem Post has documented Iran's illicit nuclear proliferation efforts in Germany since 2015, after reviewing numerous German intelligence reports.

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The Post reported last week that the prestigious Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security published a report on its website outlining a newly revealed Iranian-regime nuclear weapons plant that was discovered by Israel.

The authors of the report indicate that, “Iran should declare this site to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and allow its inspection, since the facility was designed and built to handle nuclear material subject to safeguards under Iran’s comprehensive safeguards agreement.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s activities at the Shahid Mahallati facility show deception, according to the report. “Iran has clearly been dishonest with the IAEA. During discussions in September 2015, ‘Iran informed the Agency that it had not conducted metallurgical work specifically designed for nuclear devices, and was not willing to discuss any similar activities that did not have such an application,'" the report read, however, that the “activities at Shahid Mahallati and Shahid Boroujerdi are a dramatic contrast to that statement."

The United States government has repeatedly classified Iran's regime as the worst state-sponsor of terrorism.