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The U.S. and Iran clashed at the United Nations on Monday over Tehran’s nuclear program and Iran’s selection as one of dozens of vice presidents at a month-long conference reviewing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Reuters reported.
The 11th conference to review implementation of the NPT, which came into force in 1970, opened Monday at the U.N. in New York.
Different groups nominated 34 conference vice presidents. Conference chair and Vietnam’s U.N. Ambassador Do Hung Viet said Iran was selected by “the group of non-aligned and other states.”
Christopher Yeaw, assistant secretary for the U.S. Bureau of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, told the conference that Iran’s selection was an “affront” to the NPT.
He said it was “indisputable that Iran has long demonstrated its contempt for the non-proliferation commitments of the NPT” and had refused to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog to resolve questions about its program.
Yeaw called Iran’s selection “beyond shameful and an embarrassment to the credibility of this conference.”
Reza Najafi, Tehran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, rejected the U.S. statement as “baseless and politically motivated.”
“It is indefensible that United States, as the only state ever to have used nuclear weapons and the one that continues to expand and modernize its nuclear arsenal... seeks to position itself as an arbitrator of the compliance,” Najafi told the meeting.
The nuclear issue has been at the center of the two-month war between Iran and the U.S. and Israel.
U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated Sunday that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.
Iran has long demanded that Washington recognize its right to enrich uranium. Tehran says it seeks enrichment only for peaceful purposes, while Western powers say it could be used to make nuclear weapons.
Iran has insisted it does not seek nuclear weapons.
The IAEA and the U.S. intelligence community have separately assessed that Tehran had a nuclear weapons development program that it shut down in 2003.
Iranian sources disclosed on Monday Tehran’s latest proposal to end the conflict.
The proposal would set aside discussion of Iran’s nuclear program until the war ends and disputes over shipping from the Gulf are resolved.
Trump and his top national security aides met Monday to discuss the conflict.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “the president’s red lines with respect to Iran have been made very, very clear, not just to the American public, but also to them as well.”
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