Iran voices opposition to discriminatory attitudes to NPT

AUSTRIA: Iran’s Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltanieh on Tuesday slammed the discriminatory attitudes towards implementation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). During the second meeting of the preliminary committee to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty, he stressed that West’s hostile policies towards Iran including its double-standard dialogue scheme and sanctions are doomed to failure.

He further expressed Iran’s deep concern about the discriminatory behaviour towards the NPT and said despite agreements in 2010 the disarmament process in the world is disappointing and worrying.

He termed existence of tens of thousands of nuclear warheads in countries which produce nuclear weapons and their regular update of the technology as the most serious threat to the humanity.

He said stockpiling of nuclear arms can certainly be of no help in annihilating such weapons.

Stressing that non-nuclear countries like Iran never feel secure living under such conditions, he said the international community cannot believe the excuses put forward by a small group of countries owning and producing nuclear arms.

He expressed the grave concern of the NPT member states about the strategic defense doctrines of nuclear countries which clearly manifests their rationale in making use of nuclear arms.

The Iranian envoy further referred to the installation of international missile defense system which drastically endangers the ultimate goal of disarmament as another source of concern for the international community. He said the scheme falls short of providing security for those countries hosting the missiles and instead gives other countries necessary pretexts to expand their nuclear capability, thus triggering new rounds of arms race.

- IRNA