Iran: President’s presence at NPT meeting disrupts West predictions

Tehran, May 11, IRNA – A senior nuclear official said Tuesday that presence of the Iranian president at the newly-ended NPT meeting has disrupted West’s predictions about outcome of the gathering.

Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali-Akbar Salehi made the remarks while commenting on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s participation at the opening session of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference which started at the United Nations headquarters in New York on May 3.

The Iranian president suggested 11 proposals for disarmament and non-proliferation of the nuclear weapons worldwide.

“The US and other Western states intended to control the conference and only focus on the issue of non-proliferation rather than disarming of nuclear weapons states,” Salehi told IRNA.

He added that the US officials were to add more conditions for making peaceful use of nuclear energy by non-nuclear-states.

However, he noted that President Ahmadinejad’s speech and his proposals have put the Americans in a “defensive position” and that was even felt in the speech of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who was clearly angry with President Ahmadinejad’s proposals to the NPT review conference./end