Iran urges West to support disarmament

Iran cites lack of a real political will by certain Western countries as the main reason behind the failure of global nuclear disarmament efforts.

What has impeded the activities of the UN disarmament bodies is the “lack of a real political will power by certain Western countries, who seek to exploit these bodies to proceed with their objectives,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a high-level meeting on revitalizing the work of the Conference on Disarmament on Friday.

He said the US was the only member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that has used nuclear weapons and called for real action from Western countries to help rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Mottaki said that a “comprehensive, balanced” solution to global disarmament could not be achieved as long as certain countries continued to adopt a selective approach toward the issue.

Iran’s top official said that a complete global nuclear disarmament nuclear should be the world’s the number one priority, calling for a revitalization of talks that would produce a convention to ban proliferation and to destroy nuclear weapons by 2025.

He also called on the international community to increase pressure on Israel to join the NPT and put its nuclear facilities under IAEA scrutiny.

The one-day conference was held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to find a solution to the stalled denuclearization talks.

The Geneva-based Disarmament Conference adopted its first new agenda in over a decade last year, but has so far failed to offer substantive progress.