Iran Nuclear Summit: "Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapons for None"

Local Editor 15-04-2010

During the coming weekend, Tehran will witness a nuclear summit organized by the Iranian government, after it was excluded from the Washington nuclear summit this week.

During an interview with state television, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that his country is doing its best to work with world powers, adding, "We are after cooperation and negotiation".

According to Ahmadinejad, Iran was willing to come up with a formula to protect its rights, excluding the nuclear issue.

The scheduled summit in Iran seems to aim at showing that Iran still has supporters, put also aims to send a message stating that nuclear weapons have no place in the Middle East.

From more than 60 countries, officials and representatives from international and non-governmental entities are invited to the two-day summit under the title "Nuclear energy for all, Nuclear weapons for none."

The Iranian Summit's secretary general, Akhoundzadeh, said about the conference, "This is a process, this is not a project. Some may think that this is to overshadow what's going on in Washington but we don't look at it that way."

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iranian ambassador to Netherlands revealed that the summit seeks practical methods to force nuclear-armed countries to quit their nuclear weapons.

The conference further seeks to discuss legal consequences of nuclear threats, and the end of spreading nuclear weapons, after the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into effect 40 years ago.