By Xinhua
Geneva : Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Tuesday called for a complete ban of all nuclear weapons through an international convention.
“Now is the time to ban and eliminate all nuclear weapons,” Mottaki told the UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament.
Nuclear weapons are as illegal as chemical and biological weapons and the illegality of such weapons should be recognized through a legally binding Nuclear Weapons Convention, he said.
According to Mottaki, the 65-state Conference on Disarmament is the only international body that can deal with the issue and conclude such a convention.
He urged the body to establish an Ad Hoc Committee with the mandate to begin multilateral negotiations on such a convention.
There is no doubt that the five nuclear weapon states bear the primary responsibility in such negotiations, and pending the conclusion of that convention, he added.
As for recent developments in Iran’s nuclear program, Mottaki said a recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had confirmed that there had been no diversion in the peaceful nuclear activities of Iran.
The IAEA report of Feb. 22 has clearly and manifestly declared that all remaining issues about Iran’s nuclear program had been resolved, and that Iran’s answers had been “consistent with the agency’s findings,” Mottaki said.