On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett accused Iran of stealing internal U.N. nuclear watchdog files as part of a scheme to evade inspection of its nuclear program.

Neither Tehran nor the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) responded immediately to demands for comment regarding the charges, which looked to be part of an Israeli push to deter major powers from renewing a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in now-stalled Vienna negotiations.

"Iran stole classified (IAEA) documents ... and used that information to systematically evade nuclear probes," Bennett claimed in a social media post that contained a selection of the allegedly stolen files, some of which had been translated into English.

"How do we know? Because we obtained Iran's deceptive scheme."

A Bennett aide explained that the latter claim refers to the publishing by Israeli spies in 2018 of what they claimed to be a secret cache of documents obtained in Iran and related to the country's nuclear projects. This so-called "Atomic Archive" was deemed a hoax by Tehran.

In the reported documents, an Iranian defense official said, "sooner or later they (IAEA) will ask us, and we'll need to have a comprehensive cover story for them."

Iran asserts that its nuclear program is nonmilitary. Israel, the United States, and the IAEA have long expressed that Iran had a concerted atomic weapons program before 2003.

The IAEA has spent almost a decade researching Iran's past operations and is now seeking answers from Iran regarding the origin of uranium particles discovered at three undeclared locations.

Separately, the United States and five other powers have engaged in discussions with Iran regarding the renewal of the 2015 agreement that former U.S. President Donald Trump rejected as insufficient.

Israel is not involved in these negotiations, although it has some influence over international states. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid stated on Tel Aviv radio station 103 FM, "We are saying: This is not a good deal, and there won't be a disaster if it's not signed,"