European Diplomats: Iran not Breaking Int’l Law

Revealing the world powers double standards, diplomats assure that there is no evidence that Tehran is building nuclear weapons.

Six former European diplomats viewed that despite "the West's concerns over Iran's seemingly growing nuclear capabilities, there is no tangible proof that the Islamic Republic is pursuing nuclear weapons."

This statement issued was the conclusion of an article in the British Guardian, co-authored by Richard Dalton and five other former ambassadors to Iran: Germany's Paul von Maltzahn, Sweden's Steen Hohwü-Christensen, Guillaume Metten (Belgium), François Nicoullaud (France) and Italy's Roberto Toscano.

In an article, the six say that Iran is not in violation of any international laws and that it is the West's strategy that has helped to create the conflict with Tehran.

"As ambassadors to Iran during the past decade, we have all followed closely the development of this crisis. It is unacceptable that the talks have been deadlocked for such a long time", the article said.

In terms of international law, the diplomats added, the United States and Europe's sanctions "embody in a set of Security Council resolutions authorizing coercive measures in case of 'threats to the peace"

"But what constitutes the threat? Is it the enrichment of uranium in Iranian centrifuges? This is certainly a sensitive activity, in a highly sensitive region." The article asked adding that "in principle, however, nothing in international law or in the non-proliferation treaty forbids uranium enrichment. Several other countries, parties or not to the treaty, enrich uranium without being accused of 'threatening the peace.' And in Iran, this activity is submitted to inspections by the IAEA inspections."

"So is Iran attempting to build a nuclear weapon? For at least three years, the US intelligence community has discounted this hypothesis. The US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, testified last February to Congress: "We continue to assess [whether] Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons ... We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons", the article reported.

The IAEA has never uncovered any attempted diversion of nuclear material to military use, the article states. "Most experts, even in "Israel", view Iran as striving to become technically able to produce a nuclear weapon but abstaining from doing so for now - and again, nothing in international law forbids this ambition," the six asserted.