TEHRAN - Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Saturday that Iran as a victim of weapons of mass destruction fully supports the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons.

The remarks by Ambassador Najafi came after the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was signed at a UN conference in New York on Friday. It is the first multilateral legally-binding instrument for nuclear disarmament to have been negotiated in 20 years.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly supports the objective behind this treaty in banning possession or use of nuclear weapons,” Nafafi stated.

Pointing to dangers posed by Israel’s nuclear weapons to the sensitive Middle East region, he said, “Iran’s proposal for creating a region without nuclear weapons is an example of efforts being made by our country to remove threats from the region.” 

The treaty – adopted by a vote of 122 in favour to one against (Netherlands), with one abstention (Singapore) – prohibits a full range of nuclear-weapon-related activities, such as undertaking to develop, test, produce, manufacture, acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, as well as the use or threat of use of these weapons, the UN News Center reported.

The participants did not include any of the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries, which conspicuously boycotted the negotiations, the New York Times reported.

Disarmament groups and other proponents of the treaty said they had never expected that any nuclear-armed country would sign it — at least not at first. Rather, supporters hope, the treaty’s widespread acceptance elsewhere will eventually increase the public pressure and stigma of harboring and threatening to use such weapons of unspeakable destruction, and make holdouts reconsider their positions.

“This treaty is a strong categorical prohibition of nuclear weapons and is really rooted in humanitarian law,” said Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a Geneva-based coalition of groups that advocated the treaty.

NA/PA