Iran’s president faces off with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday at the start of a meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a pact Washington and Tehran accuse each other of violating.
Iran’s nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at developing the capability to produce atomic weapons, will be one of the most hotly debated topics on the sidelines of the month long NPT review conference, a meeting held every five years to assess compliance and problems with the treaty.
Western diplomats in New York expect Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to mark the opening of the conference by accusing the United States and its allies of using fears about proliferation as a pretext to deny developing nations access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes in breach of the NPT.
It is an argument that has resonated well in the past with developing nations, which account for the majority of the 189 signatories of the landmark 1970 arms control treaty. The NPT is intended to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and calls on those with atomic warheads to abandon them.
Clinton is scheduled to speak several hours after Ahmadinejad. Last week she predicted that the Iranian president might not receive a very warm welcome in New York City and said that Iran’s record of violating the NPT was “indisputable.”
Clinton is expected to highlight the sharp reversal in U.S. nuclear policy since President Barack Obama came to power last year. Obama has made both non-proliferation and disarmament priorities in his foreign policy, unlike his predecessor George W. Bush, who repudiated arms reduction pledges Washington and the four other official nuclear powers made in 2000.
The United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — the permanent Security Council members — were allowed to keep their nuclear weapons under the NPT but pledged to launch negotiations on scrapping their arsenals. Non-nuclear weapon states complain that the five have not done enough to disarm.
A new U.S. strategy that reduces the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense policy and a recent nuclear arms reduction agreement with Russia are among the examples U.S. officials hope will persuade developing countries that the United States is serious about disarmament.
Israel, like nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, never signed the NPT and will not participate in the review conference. It neither confirms nor denies having atomic weapons, though analysts say it has a sizable nuclear arsenal.
Ahmadinenut is absolutely NO MATCH for Hillary, as I'm sure he has discovered by now.
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It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less. ~Susan B. Anthony
Say what you will about Imanutjob, but he has definitely earned his nickname.
LMAO!
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It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less. ~Susan B. Anthony