UNITED NATIONS: Iranian leader Hassan Rowhani yesterday called on Israel to admit it has a nuclear bomb ahead of a meeting between Iranian and western foreign ministers.
Rowhani also said he believed a deal could be struck with the international community on his own country’s controversial nuclear drive within three to six months.
The Iranian president spoke at a UN nuclear disarmament conference just before Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Mohammad Zarif was to hold landmark talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry and ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.
The meeting was called to discuss western allegations that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability and was to be one of the highest level Iran-US encounters since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Rowhani said Iran’s arch-foe Israel should join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which aims to contain the spread of nuclear weapons. Israel has never declared a nuclear arsenal, but is widely assumed to have several bombs.
Rowhani, speaking as current leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, highlighted the failure of attempts to organise a Middle East nuclear free zone.
“Israel, the only non-party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in this region, should join thereto without any further delay,” Rowhani told the meeting.
He said “all nuclear activities in the region” would then be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.
Iran is in dispute with the UN’s atomic watchdog, which says it has still not given definitive proof that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.
Iran denies it seeks a bomb.
Kerry met early yesterday with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and the two men agreed “that Iran should cooperate and should respond positively to the offer on the table,” a US official told reporters.
The group, dubbed the P5+1, made a new offer to Iran earlier this year, before Rowhani’s election, on how to overcome a current stalemate in the nuclear dossier.
It is believed to have offered an easing of the international sanctions which have crippled the Iranian economy, in return for a slowdown in Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment programme.
Western officials say they are still waiting for a response.
“No nation should possess nuclear weapons, since there are no right hands for these wrong weapons,” insisted Rowhani, who also met Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday.
“As long as nuclear weapons exist, the risk of their use, threat of use and proliferation persist. The only absolute guarantee is their total elimination,” he said.
Rowhani told the Washington Post he wants a quick deal on the nuclear standoff adding he has the full backing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The only way forward is for a timeline to be inserted into the negotiations that’s short — and wrap it up,” said Rowhani.
“If it’s three months, that would be Iran’s choice, if it’s six months, that’s still good. It’s a question of months not years.”
AFP
