TEHRAN TO HOST INTERNATIONAL DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE FROM APRIL 17

KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 (Bernama) -- Tehran will host a two-day
international disarmament conference beginning April 17 explore possible
mechanisms for monitoring the disarmament process of nuclear states using the
capacity of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran's ambassador to Malaysia, Dr Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi, said Friday the
conference would also seek to examine the illegitimacy of nuclear weapons from
the religious perspective.

Other aspects of the conference include the fulfilment of approaches for
global nuclear disarmament, necessity for preventing the proliferation of
nuclear weapons worldwide and confrontation with double standards adopted by
certain countries that possessed atomic weapons with other Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) member states, he told Bernama here.

Dr Zahedi said the conference would also mark the commencement of human and
ideological efforts regarding the "forgotten goals of the NPT".

"Western states are expected to have a constructive, legal and appropriate
interaction with the Tehran disarmament conference," he said.


Delegates from various countries, international organisations and
non-govermental organisations are expected to attend.

Dr Zahedi said that the idea of holding the conference had been planned
long
before as part of Iran's efforts to follow up on the topic of global nuclear
disarmament.

"The existence of thousands of nuclear warheads in the world poses the
gravest danger to international peace and security," he said, adding that
expectations on the world community to totally eliminate nuclear weapons had not
yet materialised.

"While 40 years had passed since the inception of NPT in 1968, the
non-materialisation of nuclear disarmament has become a serious concern. Thus
the conference also seeks to explore mechanisms for materialising the idea of a
world free of nuclear weapons," he said.

He noted that that there was a need to control the vertical proliferation of
nuclear weapons, namely the development of new generations of such weapons.

Dr Zahedi said the international community should try to make all countries,
which had not yet joined NPT, to do so and make sure that all countries placed
their nuclear activities under the surveillance of IAEA safeguards.

Touching on the double standards and discriminatory approaches practised by
some nuclear states towards NPT member states as well as states that had yet to
join the treaty, he said such pratices included the imposition of restrictions
on the development of peaceful nuclear programmes of member states and the
promotion of nuclear cooperation among countries which had not joined NPT, and
the refusal to fulfil disarmament obligations while insisting on
non-proliferation obligations that severely hurt the credibility and integrity
of the treaty.

Dr Zahedi also referred to the stalemate in creating a nuclear-free zone in
the Middle East.

He said the existence of nuclear weapons, by its very nature, was a cause of
concern, irrespective of which country possessed them.

-- BERNAMA



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