By IRNA,
London : Iran is legally entitled to develop nuclear energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, according to a British MP visiting Tehran for the first time.
George Galloway, who was expelled from Britain’s ruling Labour Party for his outspoken opposition to the Iraq war, also criticized the hypocrisy of Israel’s belligerence towards Iran, which has its own illegal stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Speaking before his visit, Galloway said that during his trip to Iran, he hoped to meet parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, former secretary general of the Supreme National Security Council.
“Larijani proved beyond even the CIA’s attempt at contradiction that Iran is acting entirely within her legal rights to develop nuclear power,” he said in his weekly column for the Scottish Daily Record newspaper.
“As a signatory to the treaty governing the development of nuclear weapons, Iran has done nothing wrong under it either, at least according to the watchdog maintained by the international community, the IAEA,” said the 54 year old Scottish MP.
“Israel, on the other hand, refuses to sign the nuclear weapons treaty and thus, with a chutzpah which takes the breath away, claims it’s not in breach of it,” he said.
After being expelled from Labour, Galloway was re-elected in 2005 as a MP for Bethnal Green and Bow constituency in east London for the anti-war Respect Party, which he set up.
He said that in his column next week he would write about “the great civilization that is Persia, which hasn’t attacked another country for more than 300 years, not a boast we can make ourselves.”