12/04/2010 Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog spurned the US nuclear summit opening on Monday, saying any decision taken at the conference is not binding on nations absent from the event.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, a key member of the Iranian team engaged in negotiations with world powers over Tehran's nuclear program, also accused Washington of being the "real" threat to global peace given its large nuclear arsenal. "The outcome of the Washington conference is already known. Any decision taken at the meeting is not binding on those countries who are not represented at the conference," Soltanieh told ISNA news agency.
US President Barack Obama was later Monday to open the nuclear security summit which is being attended by leaders of 46 other countries. Iran, which is at loggerheads with the United States over its nuclear program, is not represented at the conference.
But the US State Department has said that efforts to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear program will be a "significant" topic during the meeting. Iran has been under mounting global pressure to abandon its nuclear program, with Western powers claiming it wants to build an atomic bomb. Tehran says the program is peaceful and only meant to produce energy.
Soltanieh said it was Washington that was "the real threat to international security with its nuclear weapons." "The new US (nuclear) policy proves Islamic Republic of Iran's argument that the US is not committed to any global rules and regulations," he said referring to Washington's latest nuclear policy unveiled last Tuesday.
Iran, meanwhile, will hold its own two-day nuclear disarmament conference on April 17 and 18. Iran is yet to unveil the list of participants attending its conference but officials say delegations from the UN nuclear watchdog and the UN would be attending.
Obama, speaking on the eve of the summit, said that efforts by al-Qaida to acquire atomic weapons posed the biggest threat to global security, and world leaders meeting this week must act with urgency to combat this danger. Obama said he expected "enormous progress" at the conference toward the goal of locking down loose nuclear material worldwide.
"The central focus of this nuclear summit is the fact that the single biggest threat to U.S. security - both short-term, medium-term and long-term - would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon," Obama told reporters. "We know that organizations like al Qaida are in the process of trying to secure a nuclear weapon - a weapon of mass destruction that they have no compunction at using," Obama said before talks with South African President Jacob Zuma.
Obama's “goal” at the two-day summit is to get nations to agree to secure vulnerable nuclear material within four years and to take specific steps to crack down on “nuclear smuggling”.
The U.S. president held a series of wide-ranging talks with foreign leaders on Sunday, including the prime ministers of nuclear-armed foes India and Pakistan, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and South Africa's Zuma.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani "indicated his assurance that Pakistan takes nuclear security seriously and has appropriate safeguards in place," the White House said. It said Obama reasserted to Gilani "the importance of nuclear security, a priority he has reiterated for all countries."
In his 50-minute meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Obama heard a litany of concerns about India's neighbor Pakistan, according to Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, who briefed reporters. Singh talked to Obama about the activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, "and also the fact that unfortunately there was no will on the part of the government of Pakistan to punish those responsible for the terrorist crimes in Mumbai," Rao said.
White House officials said Obama praised Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev as a model leader in their meeting for the steps he has taken to denuclearize his central Asian nation.
White House officials also said Obama would meet Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the summit. Obama will seek to build momentum with China in his push for sanctions on Iran. He will hold talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao before hosting high-level delegations.
Obama made clear last week that Iran and North Korea were excluded from new limits on the use of U.S. atomic weapons -- something Tehran interpreted as a threat from a long-standing adversary to attack it with nuclear bombs.
Even as President Obama met Sunday with a succession of global leaders to discuss better control of nuclear materials, his administration highlighted a seemingly dissimilar message. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave interviews meant to reassert the nation's military strength. They indicated that the United States would spend $5 billion this year to modernize its existing nuclear weapons, which they said could be used if the country's security is in danger or in response to the threat of a biological attack.
"We'll be, you know, stronger than anybody in the world, as we always have been, with more nuclear weapons than are needed many times over," Clinton said on ABC's "This Week."
Netanyahu Worried about ‘World Silence on Iran’
"Iran's leaders are rushing to develop nuclear weapons as they freely announce their desire to destroy Israel," Netanyahu said Sunday. "But in the face of these calls to erase the Jewish State from the face of the earth time and time again, we see at best mild protests, and these too seem to be fading," he added.
"We don't hear the forceful protests that are required, we don't hear strong denouncement, or the angry voice," he said. "But as usual, there are those who direct their criticisms against us, against Israel." Netanyahu was speaking as he marked the so called Holocaust.
Speaking before the prime minister, President Shimon Peres also addressed the Iranian threat, stressing that the world could not display apathy.
"It is our right and duty to demand of the nations of the world not to repeat their indifference, which has cost millions of human lives, including theirs. The United Nations must be attentive to the threats of annihilation coming from one of its members, against another member state," Peres said.
Israel, which is not a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and believed to be the sole nuclear power in the Middle East with more than 200 nuclear warheads, will not take part in the Nuclear Security Conference due Monday in the US, fearing pressure to come clean on its ambiguous nuclear program.
Top Iran Official Spurns US Nuclear Summit
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12/04/2010 Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog spurned the US nuclear summit opening on Monday, saying any decision taken at the conference is not binding on nations absent from the event.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, a key member of the Iranian team engaged in negotiations with world powers over Tehran's nuclear program, also accused Washington of being the "real" threat to global peace given its large nuclear arsenal. "The outcome of the Washington conference is already known. Any decision taken at the meeting is not binding on those countries who are not represented at the conference," Soltanieh told ISNA news agency.
US President Barack Obama was later Monday to open the nuclear security summit which is being attended by leaders of 46 other countries. Iran, which is at loggerheads with the United States over its nuclear program, is not represented at the conference.
But the US State Department has said that efforts to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear program will be a "significant" topic during the meeting. Iran has been under mounting global pressure to abandon its nuclear program, with Western powers claiming it wants to build an atomic bomb. Tehran says the program is peaceful and only meant to produce energy.
Soltanieh said it was Washington that was "the real threat to international security with its nuclear weapons." "The new US (nuclear) policy proves Islamic Republic of Iran's argument that the US is not committed to any global rules and regulations," he said referring to Washington's latest nuclear policy unveiled last Tuesday.
Iran, meanwhile, will hold its own two-day nuclear disarmament conference on April 17 and 18. Iran is yet to unveil the list of participants attending its conference but officials say delegations from the UN nuclear watchdog and the UN would be attending.
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