Washington, April 30: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran’s president on Thursday he will not get a warm welcome at U.N. nonproliferation talks next week if he seeks to sow confusion about Iran’s nuclear program.
The United States and some of its Western allies believe that Iran is using its civil nuclear program as a cover to develop atomic weapons, something Tehran committed not to do under the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, which says its nuclear program is to generate electricity but not to build bombs, has applied for a visa to attend the treaty review conference that opens on Monday at the United Nations.
The purpose of the meeting, which occurs every five years, is to recommit nations to the treaty’s three pillars: disarmament, nonproliferation and the peaceful use of civil nuclear energy, Clinton told a news conference.
“The mission of those of us going to New York to review, revise and reinvigorate the NPT regime is very clear. If that’s not his mission, then it won’t be a particularly useful or productive trip on his part,” she said.
Clinton said she did not know why Ahmadinejad wanted to come to the conference, saying that Iran’s record of violating the NPT was “absolutely indisputable.”
“If President Ahmadinejad wants to come and announce that Iran will abide by their nonproliferation requirements under the NPT, that would be very good news indeed and we would welcome that,” she said.
“But if he believes that by coming he can somehow divert attention from this very important global effort or cause confusion that might possibly throw into doubt what Iran has been up to … then I don’t believe he will have a particularly receptive audience.”
A State Department spokesman said visa requests for the Iranian delegation were still being processed. As the host for the U.N. headquarters, the United States usually grants visas to foreign leaders who wish to attend U.N. events.
—Agencies