A nuclear disarmament conference is underway in Iran, with up to 60
countries taking part in it. It comes as the UN discusses possible new
sanctions against Iran.
The conference follows the non-proliferation summit in the US earlier this week, from which Tehran was kept off the guest list.
It is Iran’s last big push against sanctions, as it has persuaded UN
Security Council members China and Russia, along with the UN’s nuclear
watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to come to
Tehran.
The conference opened with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei saying that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely peaceful. In a
speech read out by his advisor he declared that nuclear weapons are
contrary to the laws of Islam.
“The Iranian people who itself fell victim to the chemical
weapons in the past, better than anyone else realizes the dangers of
proliferation of mass destruction weapons and is going to canalize its
energies and possibilities to encounter this,” the statement says.
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Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has actually
threatened to leave the IAEA because of what he calls double standards.
He said that countries like Israel, which is suspected of possessing
nuclear weapons, are not inspected by the watchdog because they are not
members.
He also added that many so-called non-aligned countries actually support Iran’s program for peaceful nuclear energy.
Ahmadinejad said it would be expedient to set up “an international independent body having full authority to control nuclear disarmament.”
Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Tehran can
build a prototype nuclear bomb within a year, while Israel says the
Iranians could pull it off within months.
However, in a somewhat unorthodox rebuttal, Ahmadinejad himself
declared that if the world doesn’t back off, Iran could have a bomb
ready next month.
At this week’s nuclear summit in Washington, the US, Russia and China moved towards a consensus on so-called “smart” sanctions to come into effect as early as this month.
These sanctions will only target companies held by Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard. Originally the president’s militia, it is now
Iran’s biggest conglomerate with stakes in thousands of top industrial
producers, banks and corporations.
EU countries among others are known to be unhappy at US efforts to make its ban on all trade with Iran international.
American studies show that three rounds of UN sanctions have made
life harder for ordinary Iranians with the unintended consequence of
boosting support for hardline nationalist politicians like Ahmadinejad.
If the latest round of sanctions fails as well, analysts warn Barack Obama will be under pressure to back up his threats with military action next year.
The Iranian summit’s official catchphrase is “Nuclear energy for
all, nuclear weapons for no one”, and it comes as Russia confirms the
nuclear power plant in Bushehr in Iran will be completed by August.
The IAEA is monitoring the construction of the Bushehr plant, so Iran doesn’t use the necessary technology to make a nuclear weapon.
Basically what Iran is trying to do with the help of this summit is
undermine the impact of the nuclear security summit which just happened
in Washington, believes Dmitry Suslov from the Council of Foreign and
Defense Policy.
“It is very symbolic that there were 47 states in Washington
plus three international organizations, and now there are about 60
countries participating in Tehran. So, Iran is trying to make an
impression that the US is not the global agenda setter in the field of
nuclear security, nuclear weapons and atomic energy,”“And
secondly, Iran wants to show that there is no overwhelming
international support for the sanctions. And those 60 countries that
participate in Tehran, by the very fact of their participation, send a
signal to the West, to the US, that they are against overwhelming
sanctions.” Suslov said.
Andrey Klimov, Deputy Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the
Russian State Duma, says Russia only supports sanctions that do not
result in Iran’s economic collapse.
“We do not want to exclude Iran from talks and international
cooperation. Moreover, Iranian politicians declare that they have a
peaceful policy. But at the same time their behavior is dangerous and
they do not follow international rules, which causes our concerns,” Klimov said.
“When we in Russia speak about sanctions against Iran, we mean
protection against possible military aggression from Iran. At the same
time, we are against sanctions that can be disastrous for the country
and even destroy it,” he added.
Political analyst Vyacheslav Nikonov says Russia’s role in solving
the problem with Iran is crucial – that is why it has participated both
in the Washington conference and has sent a delegation to Tehran.
“[Russia does] agree that at this point Iran is not violating
the non-proliferation treaty, but it is definitely violating the
additional protocol and at least a couple of the Security Council
resolutions. That should not be tolerated. Russia is for diplomacy and
it is going to keep the negotiation process alive. And that is one of
the reasons Russia is there in Tehran,” Nikonov told RT.
Chief of the Council of Foreign and Defense Policy Sergey Karaganov
believes that “in a multi-polar world, it is impossible to impose any
harsh sanctions on any country, and Iran knows that.” “So any kind of economic sanctions will only have a limited and symbolic influence,” he said.
Watch the full interview with Sergey Karaganov
RT News