Iran's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian on Wednesday in Tehran called on all countries, especially those having access to nuclear missiles, to empty their arsenals of nuclear weapons.
Speaking to a conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Nejad-Hosseinian pointed to Israel's nuclear program and called on countries represented in the conference to verify the matter for themselves and address the matter.
He added that the Israeli regime's offensive and massacre of innocent lives in the Palestinian occupied territories is part of its offensive nature and lack of respect for international laws and regulations, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency IRNA.
"While member countries, signatories to the NPT treaty are responsible for enforcing its provisions," he said, "no positive and proper steps have been taken against violators in recent years."
The Iranian envoy recalled the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM) Treaty and the abandonment of negotiations for a reduction of nuclear missiles as well as Washington's new military doctrine and threat to use its nuclear weapons against "rogue" countries, currently under consideration by Congress, as the primary factors weakening or thwarting efforts toward achieving global peace.
Furthermore, he noted that Washington, in a statement submitted to the United Nations Security Council in 1968, had made a commitment to use its missiles in a defensive capacity and not against non-nuclear or member states, unless these countries are guilty of an attack against it.
Nejad-Hosseinian referred to the US unilateral decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty thereby neutralizing international efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons and called upon the international community to react against such unilateral moves. (Albawaba.com)
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