I recently took part in a mock United Nations (MUN) debate on the topic of Iranian nuclear capabilities which seems all the more relevent today having just read about Iran's recent attempts to purchase banned substances from North Korea.
Iran has signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and therefore should be held accountable to this.
Whilst the rest of the UN must aknowledge Iran's right to develop nuclear capabilities for the purpose of generating electricity, it is the view of many that Iran should and must not be allowed to disregard their previous agreements and international law.
It is now perhaps time for the UN to impose stricter sanctions on Iran and I believe the Iranian government should be expected to allow UN weapons inspectors to examine the full extent of their nuclear capabilities.
It is clear to most of the world that Iran's nuclear programme is not purely for seeking alternative energy sources and it may now be the case that it is necessary for the UN to accept that Iran will be a nuclear power and look to creating alternative arrangements to work more constructively with Iran.
I feel that the time has come to stop attempting to avoid the inevitable. Whilst it is not ideal that the UN is seen to 'give in' to Iran, they must work with what is happening in reality rather than what they would like the situation to be.
1 comment:
Iran isn't "disregarding" anything. The NPT specifically says that nuclear technology has to be shared "without discrimination" and "to the fullest extent possible." The very first sentence of IRan's safeguards agreement with the IAEA states clearly that it is EXCLUSIVELY meant to ensure the non-diversion of nuclear material for non-peaceful uses. THe IAEA has ALWAYS certified that to be the case. The demands that Iran do more than what the NPT and its safeguards agreement requires, are themselves illegal & purely political. Nevertheless Iran has repeatedly offered to place additional limits on their nuclear program such as opening the program to joint participation by the US, but these offers have simply been ignored. Why? BEcause the nuclear issue is just a pretext, just as WMDs in Iraq were just a pretext. No amount of Iranian concenssions will satisfy the US because the "Iranian nuclear weapons" scare is pretextual.
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