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| Iran will not attend ‘meaningless’ IAEA forum on Middle East nuke-free zone |
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 TEHRAN – The Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, has said that Iran will not attend the IAEA forum on a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, which opens in Vienna on Monday and runs until on Tuesday. He called such forums meaningless as long as the IAEA follows a double-standard approach toward certain issues, including the cases of Syria and the Zionist regime. He explained that Iran will not attend the forum because IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano violates international rules and regulations. Pointing to the prominent role of Iran in helping to approve a "Middle East free of nuclear weapons" plan, which has been mentioned in various resolutions, Soltanieh said that according to the annual IAEA general assembly resolution, the director general was obliged to hold a forum for finding scientific mechanisms to make the Middle East a nuclear weapons-free zone. "The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that boosting and raising hopes to create a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East is meaningless while the Zionist regime has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its nuclear activities are not controlled by the IAEA," Soltanieh told the ISNA news agency. He attributed the reference of the Syria case to the IAEA Board of Governors to interferences by the United States and Israel and the “biased” approach of the IAEA director which was primarily aimed at diverting the public attention in the region. Since Amano kept silent on Israel’s attack on Syria's al-Kibar facility, “we will not consider the holding and participation of such a conference as useful,” Ambassador Soltanieh stated. He went on to say that even if there was a reactor in the Syrian facility, it has not flouted international law and Syria may have only failed to inform the IAEA earlier. According to the IAEA resolution “any threat of attack or attack on nuclear facilities or nuclear facilities under construction” is considered a violation of the UN charter, so Tel Aviv has violated the IAEA charter, he explained. "Iran will announce its stance in the upcoming official assemblies of IAEA and we believe that holding such forums is fruitless so long as behaviors of the agency are based on double standards," he said in conclusion.
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