Iran calls for intl. pressure on Israel

Tehran calls on the international community to put pressure on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi says.

“Establishing a world free of nuclear weapons is one of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s priorities,” Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said at the IAEA General Conference in Vienna on Monday.

“Achieving this objective entails pursuing the three pillars of the NPT, disarmament, non-proliferation and the realization of the undeniable right to use peaceful nuclear energy,” IRNA quoted Salehi as saying.

Salehi said forty years after the NPT was ratified, the International community still suffers from “imbalance between disarmament and non-proliferation.”

Iran has always “stressed the establishment of a region free of weapons of mass destruction” in line with the resolution issued in the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, Salehi added.

The resolution on the Middle East called on all regional states to join the treaty and put all nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards, and also work toward a region free of weapons of mass destruction.

“It should be noted that the 2010 NPT Review Conference reiterated the necessity of Israel joining the Treaty and placing its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards.”

Salehi expressed regret that due to the support given to Israel by its Western allies, no measure has so far been adopted in this regard.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran invites all countries to increase their efforts to mount more pressure on Israel and compel it to surrender to this international demand,” Salehi concluded.