Iran calls for constructive approach towards Tehran conference

Tehran - Iran called on the West Wednesday to have a constructive approach towards a two-day international conference on nuclear disarmament in Tehran next week.

"We call on the West to have a realistic and constructive approach towards the Tehran conference and refrain from having a narrow-minded and discriminatory pre-judgement," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said.

Referring to Iran's arch-enemy Israel, he said that the Jewish state was the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons and called on the United States and Europe to revise their ignorance of Israel's nuclear arsenal.

"Nuclear disarmament is a major global concern and the Tehran conference is a start to effectively tackle this concern and move towards clean (civil) nuclear programs," Iran's chief diplomat said.

Mottaki said that officials and scholars from 70 countries are scheduled to attend the conference starting April 17, whose main slogan is to be "Peaceful nuclear technology for everyone, atomic bomb for no one."

"Another aim of the conference is to remind that the main aims of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) should not be forgotten," the minister said.

Tehran says that every signatory of the NPT should have the internationally acknowledged right to pursue peaceful nuclear technology.

While repeatedly rejecting Western charges of pursuing a secret military program, Iran has called on world powers to confront Israel's nuclear arsenal rather than Iran's peaceful nuclear projects.

Mottaki said the dispute over Iran's nuclear programs could still be settled and a uranium exchange deal realized.

In October, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) brokered a deal under which Iran could swap low-enriched uranium with Russia and France for nuclear fuel to power its medical reactor in Tehran.

Tehran insists that the handover take place on Iranian territory to ensure a proper implementation of the deal. The IAEA and the world powers have so far rejected that condition.

Although the deal would not have entirely settled the dispute, it has been seen as a first step towards unlocking further talks on Iran's nuclear program.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/317452,iran-calls-for-constructive-approach-towards-tehran-conference.html.