Ahead of meet in New York, Iran seeks big changes in NPT

TEHRAN: Iran on Sunday stepped up its campaign for making radical changes in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) ahead of a conference in New York in May that would review the treaty in its entirety.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in his concluding address at a conference on disarmament and non-proliferation, said Tehran favoured consultations with “some members” of the United Nations Security Council for setting up a time-table for eliminating all atomic weapons across the globe.

Mr. Mottaki said the drive for nuclear disarmament should follow the lead given by the Chemical Weapons Convention which, despite initial scepticism, succeeded in forging a legal regime to eliminate all chemical weapons. However, he emphasised that destruction of chemical weapons as agreed upon, must be completed by 2012.

The Minister stressed that new ideas were required to revitalise all three dimensions of the NPT — non-proliferation, peaceful use of nuclear energy and disarmament — at next month's review conference. “Forty years after the NPT's coming into force, a new approach was needed to make the treaty relevant,” he said.

Mr. Mottaki pointed out that the NPT had failed to fulfil its promise on non-proliferation. Citing Israel's example, he asserted that “everybody knows who equipped Israel with these weapons, which enabled it to acquire different types of [atomic] warheads.”