Iran Totally against Production of WMDs: FM
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif underlined that the country, as one of the major victims of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), is absolutely against these weapons.
“We, as the latest and one of the main victims of weapons of mass destruction, believe that no weapon of mass destruction should ever be produced,” Zarif said in a meeting in Vienna with Iranian and Austrian physicians treating Iranian war veterans suffering from the effects of chemical weapons used by the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980-1988 Iraqi imposed war on Iran.
“We are a nation who have never committed crime in retaliation to (others’) crime, never made an act of aggression against others and never responded to hostilities with enmity,” Zarif stated.
Noting that despite Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons, Iran never resorted to employing these weapons against Saddam’s forces, Zarif underlined that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons today, either.
The Iranian top diplomat is in Vienna heading the country’s nuclear team for talks with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program.
The talks, which will run until Friday, are aimed at drafting a long-awaited, comprehensive nuclear agreement before a July 20 deadline.
Zarif further said some of the countries that are attending the nuclear talks today and claim to be against nuclear weapons and other WMDs were among the supporters of these weapons back in the 1980s.
Some Western countries, including the United States, accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons but Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), strongly rejects the allegations and says it needs the nuclear energy program for peaceful purposes including generating electricity and producing radio medicines.
