By IRNA,
Vienna : Iran’s IAEA envoy Ali-Asghar Soltanieh on Monday warned against efforts to blame non-nuclear states for ongoing proliferation concerns.
“A few countries have attempted to wrongly induce that proliferation concerns merely arise from non-nuclear weapon states.
Furthermore, through a false and misleading propaganda, they similarly try to describe nuclear energy as the synonym of nuclear weapons. This is while all nuclear activities of the NNWSs parties to the NPT are under the full-scope safeguards of the IAEA and they have already forgone nuclear option and thus pose no threat to the others,” said Soltanieh.
Addressing the NPT Review Conference and its Preparatory Committees in Geneva on Monday, Soltanieh said the NPT Review Conference and its Preparatory Committees cannot easily overlook that certain NWSs, in contravention to their legal undertakings, promote the role and status of nuclear weapons in their defense and security doctrines and spread these weapons to the others.
Soltanieh said non-compliance of Article I by the said NWSs and lack of any guarantee for verification of obligations of such violators have created serious challenges towards principles and purposes of the Treaty.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is of the view that during preparatory Committees and the next Review Conference, State Parties have to deal with the issue of non-compliance of certain nuclear weapon states which is a serious threat to the international security, as the first priority.”
Soltanieh then highlighted the Agency’s efforts to improve the efficiency of the Safeguard system.
“During the last decade many decisions have been taken by the Agency to improve the efficiency of the safeguard system. These measures including inter-alia conclusion of the subsidiary arrangements, additional protocol have considerably increased the legal authority of the Agency to carry out its responsibilities but the lack of full confidence in efficiency of safeguards still exist.” He said the root causes of non-confidence in efficiency of the safeguards are as follows: a. Lack of balance between rights and obligation; b. Lack of balance between obligations of nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states; c. Discriminatory and double standard policies and approach; d. Engagement of the Safeguards in activities beyond statutory legal obligations under the pretext of completeness and correctness, or politically motivated decisions of Board of Governors, has created serious concerns for the majority of Member States; and e. Non-adherence of the only non-party in the Middle East namely the Zionist regime which has acknowledged the possession of nuclear weapons, with nuclear weapon activities and facilities being outside of any international surveillance including the Agency’s Comprehensive Safeguards.
He also announced that the status quo cannot be sustained and no additional measure in strengthening safeguards can be accepted by non-nuclear weapon states parties unless these serious constraints and discriminations are removed.
Soltanieh said, “In the course of the meeting unfortunately few western delegations especially of US, UK, Australia, Japan and France had tried to poison the cooperative environment by repeating obsolete and boring baseless allegations against my country.
“They did further damage their credibility by not even reflecting the latest progress reports of the Agency’s Director General to the effect that after the most robust verification process the IAEA has concluded that all Iran’s declarations are consistent with the Agency’s findings. The Director General has continuously reported that there is no evidence of diversion of nuclear material and activities to prohibited purposes. I did present comprehensive information including facts and figures on the exclusively peaceful nuclear program of my country, based on Agency’s document to NGOs, representatives of civil society, which I trust shall to great extend disclose and reflect the facts, which their governments have covered up from their nations.
“It seems that these few countries have hidden agenda to damage the NPT by creating confrontation atmosphere among members of the club while totally ignoring the non-parties violations and even awarding them for the rejection of the NPT!” announced the Iranian envoy.”