TEHRAN - Hamid Baeedinejad, the director general of Political and International Affairs Department of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday Israel’s membership in the Middle East countries group of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is giving Iran serious cause for concern.

Western countries and the Zionist regime of Israel have no right to decide for the group of the Middle East and South Asian countries and impose participation of Israel in the group, he said in a message published on social media.

He said that it has been for 20 years that the members to the Mideast group have opposed membership of Israel and now time is ripe for solving the problem by transferring Israel to another group.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is a multilateral treaty by which states agree to ban all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 September 1996.

Baeedinejad also said that Iran believes the main objective of the CTBT has been preventing development of the nuclear weapons through banning all kinds of nuclear tests.

Unfortunately, this objective has not been reached to the extent to meet the expectation of the Non-Aligned Movement, he added.

The NAM member states, especially Iran, expect the CTBT to be a real treaty to limit not only nuclear explosions but also development of nuclear weapons, he said.

Israel has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world, an issue Iran has been always objecting to, calling for disarmament of the regime.

However, western powers and the U.S. has turned a blind eye to potential dangers of the fact, talking about a nuclear-free Middle East. 

NA