Tehran disarmament conference opens today

April 17, 2010 - 0:0

TEHRAN - The Nuclear Energy For All, Nuclear Weapons For No One conference opens today in Tehran.

A number of major international figures, nuclear experts, and foreign ministers as well as representatives of international and non-governmental organizations will be attending the two-day Tehran nuclear disarmament conference.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that all countries should work for the cause of nuclear non-proliferation and try to create a world without nuclear weapons.
Addressing worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran, Mottaki said that the United States is trying to deceive the world about its nuclear weapons and the recent nuclear summit in Washington was just a show.
“Those who possess nuclear weapons are not trustworthy,” he added.
Nuclear weapons have no place in Mideast
Tehran will continue to send the strong message that nuclear weapons have no place at all in this very sensitive part of the world, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad-Mehdi Akhoundzadeh said on Friday.
The Tehran conference is a platform where everyone can express their views, Akhoundzadeh stated.
Akhoundzadeh, who is also the secretary general of the Tehran disarmament conference, said that the conference was not organized to overshadow the Washington nuclear summit.
“This is a process, this is not a project. Some may think that this is meant to overshadow what went on in Washington, but we don't look at it that way,” he added.
Leaders and representatives of 47 nations gathered in Washington on April 12 and 13 to participate in a nuclear security summit, but Iran and North Korea were not invited to the conference.
Tehran conference seeks to revive NPT
MP Kazem Jalali of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee has said that the Tehran nuclear disarmament conference seeks to revive the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“The initial objectives of the NPT were to provide states with the opportunity to use peaceful nuclear energy and to bind nuclear weapon states to move toward disarmament,” Jalali told the Mehr News Agency on Friday.
“Today we see that none of those objectives have been realized and even the recent treaty to cut the number of nuclear warheads signed by Obama and Medvedev was in fact propaganda,” he added.
Last week President Barack Obama and President Dimitry Medvedev signed a landmark treaty in Prague, pledging to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia by a third.
“The Tehran conference is a global call for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is seeking to integrate states that are trying to attain nuclear technology meant for peaceful purposes,” Jalali stated.
“Through this conference, Iran is announcing to the world that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons since it is against the religion of Islam based on the fatwa (religious decree) issued by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei,” he added