Iraqi PM Underlines Peaceful Settlement of Iran’s N. Issue

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in a meeting with Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano stressed the necessity for the peaceful settlement of Iran’s nuclear issue, and announced Baghdad’s readiness to help the relevant sides in this regard.

During the meeting, Maliki said that Iraq as a part of the region is affected by any regional development and therefore, it is ready to provide the IAEA with all its facilities and capabilities to help resolve the nuclear standoff between Iran and the West peacefully.

He also asked the IAEA to double efforts to create a Middle-East region free from nuclear weapons, and said that no government should be excluded from such efforts since any exclusion will provoke a nuclear race in the region.

The Middle-Eastern states have repeatedly cautioned that Israel’s nuclear arsenal poses a threat to Middle East peace and security.

Israel avoids joining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iran, an NPT-signatory, has also called for the removal of all weapons of mass destruction from across the globe.

In pursuit of global nuclear disarmament, Tehran held a conference on nuclear disarmament on April 18-19, 2010, with officials from different world countries in attendance. During the two-day conference, world officials and politicians put their heads together to address issues and concerns in connection with nuclear disarmament.

Despite Iran’s compliance with the NPT, Washington and its Western allies accuse the country of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran’s nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plant.