Iran urges action against Israeli crimes

Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazaee has called on the international community to take action to stop Israel’s acts of aggression against Palestinians.

“Various measures against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and other occupied lands have caused a humanitarian catastrophe and if no action is taken to stop the Zionist regime’s inhumane measures … the catastrophe will go beyond the Middle East,” Khazaee told a UN Security Council meeting on Monday.

“The international community should deal with this issue as soon as possible so that an atmosphere of trust would be established,” he went on to say.

The Iranian envoy also reminded the international community of the final declaration of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in May and called for action against Israel’s nuclear program as a threat to both the Middle East and the world.

“The existence of nuclear weapons in the hands of this regime that has a record of state terrorism and has done numerous acts of aggression has endangered regional and global peace and security,” he noted.

In the final declaration of the NPT Review Conference in May, all 189 NPT members called for a conference to be held in 2012 leading to the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.

The statement also mentioned “the importance of Israel’s accession to the treaty and the placement of all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards.”

Israel, which is widely believed to be among the world’s biggest nuclear-armed powers, maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity over its nuclear work and continues to defy international calls to join the NPT.