Nonaligned Movement (NAM) backs Iran's nuclear program

Nonaligned countries back Iran's nuclear program 2008-07-31 00:46:02 - TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - More than 100 nonaligned nations backed Iran's right to peaceful uses of nuclear power on Wednesday, an endorsement sought by Tehran in its standoff with the U.N. Security Council over its refusal to freeze uranium enrichment.

Senior Iranian officials depicted the support, coming from a high-level conference of the 120-nation Nonaligned Movement, as deflating claims by the U.S. and its allies that most of the international community wanted Iran to stop enrichment. As did similar NAM declarations in the past, the conference's backing acts to «remove this notion that the international community opposes the nuclear activities of Iran,» said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

The NAM is made up of such diverse members as communist Cuba, Jamaica and India, and depicts itself as bloc-free. But most members share a critical view of the U.S and the developed world in general. Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's top representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the endorsement from the 115 countries present at the Tehran conference sends a «strong positive signal that the only way is negotiation and dialogue» over the nuclear standoff. «Get the message,» he said, in blunt comments indirectly aimed at the U.S. and its Western allies, the nations at the forefront of accusations that Tehran wants to build nuclear arms. «Come to the negotiating table.

Support was expressed in a three-page declaration in Farsi, translated by The Associated Press, that drew heavily in phrasing on similar past NAM declarations. It said the conference «reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of all states, to develop research, production and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes....

...Only days remain until the expiration of an informal two-week deadline set July 19 by six world powers for Tehran to show it is willing to stop expanding its enrichment program, at least temporarily, in exchange for their commitment to stop seeking new U.N sanctions.

The offer is meant to create space for the start of in-depth negotiations that the six hope will end in Iran agreeing to permanently mothball its enrichment program in exchange for a package of economic and political concessions. But there was no sign Wednesday that Tehran was willing to bend. First, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said that backing down on enrichment in the face of «arrogant powers» would only benefit those six nations _ the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany. ...