Iran Complains of Nuclear “Double Standard”

Iran yesterday said it would not permit snap inspections of its nuclear sites as long as Israel fails to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 5).

“The existing double standard shall not be tolerated anymore by non-nuclear-weapon states,” said Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iranian envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, during a conference of NPT states in Geneva.

Iran is a NPT member nation but has not yet ratified the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which allows for more intrusive nuclear inspections.  Israel refuses to confirm or deny the existence of its nuclear arsenal.

Soltanieh said that Western powers were enforcing a “nuclear apartheid” by secretly giving nuclear assistance to some nations while impeding the civilian atomic activities of Iran and other countries.  France, the United Kingdom and the United States have pressured Tehran to abandon nuclear work they fear could contribute to weapons development, but Iran insists its program is purely civilian in nature.

“Access of developing countries to peaceful nuclear materials and technologies has been continuously denied to the extent that they have had no choice than to acquire their requirements for peaceful uses of nuclear energy — including for medical and industrial applications — from open markets,” Soltanieh said, adding that the equipment obtained often costs more, is of poorer quality and is more dangerous.

Soltanieh said that more than 30 nations have not yet agreed to full U.N. nuclear watchdog safeguards. 

“Israel, with huge nuclear weapons activities, has not concluded” a similar agreement or opened its nuclear sites to IAEA inspections, he said (Alexander Higgins, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, May 5).

Meanwhile, Israeli President Shimon Peres said yesterday that Iran would endanger the entire world if it obtains nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse reported.

“Iran is a danger not only for Israel but also for the rest of the world,” Peres told reporters.  “A nuclear Iran will be a nightmare for the world.”

The Israeli leader said his nation does not plan to launch strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities similar to its 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor.

“There will be no need for military action if the world community is united,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Google News, May 5).

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