US to Rebuke Pro-Iran Participants in NY Conference

Local Editor

After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided to attend the upcoming non-proliferation conference in New York, the US started to take measures to counteract such move.

Monday will be the opening day of the conference to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), where Ahmadinejad is supposed to speak third.

180 countries' representatives will attend the conference held at the UN Headquarters in New York. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will speak at the gathering, where analysts say that the decision to have Clinton attend the conference was in order to prevent it from becoming a forum for those opposing new rounds of UN sanctions on Iran.

According to US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher, Washington will be seeking at the NPT talks for more authority and money for the UN nuclear watchdog and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). She said Obama has committed never using nuclear weapons against states that do not possess nuclear arms, except Iran and North Korea, referring to a loophole of testing nuclear warheads.

Iran has repeatedly explained that it is one of the signatories of the NPT, and its nuclear program is peaceful and strictly under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog.