Iran urges end to nuclear weapons as talks begin

NUCLEAR weapons only bring disaster and the world would do well to denuclearise, Iran’s foreign minister said yesterday as Tehran opened talks with the West in Geneva over its contested atomic project.

“I think we need to promote very seriously the issue of denuclearisation. Nuclear weapons do not solve any problem. They only bring disaster,” Manouchehr Mottaki said at the start of a two-day visit to Athens. “I think all countries in the world should proceed with denuclearisation. It is the best guarantee of security.”

Iran and six world powers held their first talks in more than a year yesterday, focusing mainly on Tehran’s need to diffuse fears about its nuclear programmes.

Delegates from Iran, the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany met at a conference centre in Geneva, with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton greeting Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief negotiator, in the foyer.

“About 75%” of yesterday’s three-hour morning session was devoted to nuclear issues, said an official close to the talks. That was significant, because the Islamic Republic had come to the table insisting the negotiations address Iran’s nuclear programme only peripherally, if at all. Specific sensitive points included a renewed call by the world powers for an end to Tehran’s programme of uranium enrichment — an activity that the Islamic Republic says is not up for discussion, said the official, who asked for anonymity in exchange for discussing the confidential negotiations.

Publicly, Iran continued to insist that enrichment and related programmes were not on the agenda.

Ashton and officials from the six powers at the talks told Iran doubts about the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme were among the sources of instability in the region, the official said.

Jalili’s comments included mentioning last week’s assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist and the wounding of an associate, the official said. Iran says Majid Shahriar, the scientist killed in the bombing, was involved in a major project with Iran’s nuclear agency. The wounded scientist, Fereidoun Abbasi, is suspected by the UN of links to secret nuclear activities. Iran has accused the West and Israel of being behind the assault.

Underlining its commitment to enrichment, Iran on Sunday announced it had delivered its first domestically-mined raw uranium to a processing facility. Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran and the country’s vice-president, said Iran was now self-sufficient over the entire nuclear fuel cycle, from extracting uranium ore to enriching it and producing nuclear fuel.

Israel has threatened to attack Iran, even though Israel is believed to have stockpiled more than 200 nuclear weapons and it is not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.