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The NPT conference chair and Vietnam\u2019s UN ambassador, Do Hung Viet, said Iran was picked by \u2018the group of non-aligned and other states\u2019. (AFP pic)
\nUNITED NATIONS: The US and Iran clashed at the UN on Monday over Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme and its selection to be one of dozens of vice presidents at a month-long conference to review the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.<\/p>\n
The 11th conference to review implementation of the NPT, which came into force in 1970, began on Monday at the UN in New York.<\/p>\n
Different groups nominated 34 conference vice presidents, and the conference chair, Vietnam\u2019s UN ambassador Do Hung Viet, said Iran was picked by \u201cthe group of non-aligned and other states\u201d.<\/p>\n
Christopher Yeaw, assistant secretary for the US Bureau of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, told the conference that Iran\u2019s selection was an \u201caffront\u201d to the NPT.<\/p>\n
He said it was \u201cindisputable that Iran has long demonstrated its contempt for the non-proliferation commitments of the NPT\u201d and had refused to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog to resolve questions about its programme.<\/p>\n
He called Iran\u2019s selection \u201cbeyond shameful and an embarrassment to the credibility of this conference\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reza Najafi, who serves as Tehran\u2019s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, rejected the US statement as \u201cbaseless and politically motivated\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is indefensible that the US, as the only state ever to have used nuclear weapons and the one that continues to expand and modernise its nuclear arsenal\u2026 seeks to position itself as an arbitrator of the compliance,\u201d he told the meeting.<\/p>\n
The nuclear issue has been at the heart of the two-month war between Iran and the US and Israel, with President Donald Trump reiterating on Sunday that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
Iran has long demanded Washington acknowledge its right to enrich uranium, which Tehran says it only seeks for peaceful purposes, but which Western powers say could be used to make nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
Iran has insisted it does not seek nuclear weapons. But the IAEA and the US intelligence community separately assessed that Tehran had a nuclear weapons development programme that it shuttered in 2003.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Iranian sources disclosed Tehran\u2019s latest proposal to end the conflict, which would set aside discussion of Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme until the war is ended and disputes over shipping from the Gulf are resolved.<\/p>\n
Trump and his top national security aides met to discuss the conflict on Monday and White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters \u201cthe president\u2019s red lines with respect to Iran have been made very, very clear, not just to the American public, but also to them as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NPT conference chair and Vietnam\u2019s UN ambassador, Do Hung Viet, said Iran was picked by \u2018the group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10057,13058,34,2107,380,3122,25824,69,30789,12746,30790,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-86556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tehran","8":"tag-donald-trump-iran","9":"tag-iaea","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iran-nuclear-programme","12":"tag-non-proliferation-treaty","13":"tag-nuclear-deal","14":"tag-nuclear-diplomacy","15":"tag-tehran","16":"tag-un-conference","17":"tag-uranium-enrichment","18":"tag-us-iran-un","19":"tag-us-sanctions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116479175173733335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}