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NPT members' nuclear rights must be respected, Iran says

Iran Materials 1 May 2014 14:09 (UTC +04:00)
A senior Iranian official says member states of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) should face no obstacles in the way of exercising their right to peaceful nuclear technology.
NPT members' nuclear rights must be respected, Iran says

A senior Iranian official says member states of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) should face no obstacles in the way of exercising their right to peaceful nuclear technology.

"Industrial countries, in particular, are obliged to facilitate the implementation of the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes for all countries," Hamid Baeidinejad, the director general for political and international security affairs at Iran's Foreign Ministry, said, Press TV reported on May 1.

Baeidinejad, who was addressing an NPT preparatory conference in New York on April 30, highlighted "the inalienable right" of all signatories to the NPT to research, develop, produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes as the main objectives of the treaty.

He expressed misgivings that nuclear powers, around 45 years after the NPT went into effect, have taken no step toward fulfilling their commitments to reduce and annihilate their nukes; rather, they have developed various new types of atomic arms.

Nuclear countries have breached their non-proliferation obligations and compromised the credibility of the NPT by assisting the non-NPT members and transferring equipment, materials, and nuclear technology to them, he underlined.

Baeidinejad said nuclear powers must reverse their efforts to develop nuclear weapons and instead support nuclear disarmament talks and take practical steps in that regard to prove their commitment to the NPT.

He further renewed Tehran's call for turning the Middle East into a nuclear weapons-free zone to prevent nuclear proliferation.

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