Iran today led calls by non-aligned nations for Israel to give up its nuclear weapons as a major conference got underway on advancing prospects for a nuclear-free world.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif addressed the conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) ahead of a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the landmark nuclear deal reached this month.
Zarif insisted that the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is demanding that "Israel, the only one in the region that has neither joined the NPT nor declared its intention to do so, renounce possession of nuclear weapons."
Israel is considered a nuclear-armed state although it has never acknowledged its status and has refused to join the NPT, a treaty that imposes obligations on signatories.
Israel is sending an observer to the month-long NPT conference for the first time in 20 years.
Zarif said non-aligned nations are also seeking "as a matter of high priority" to set up a nuclear-free-weapons zone in the Middle East.
The planned zone was agreed at the previous conference in 2010, but there was no action on the proposal.
The 190 signatories of the NPT opened a month-long conference to review progress over the past five years in reducing the nuclear threat with much of the focus centered on the fate of US and Russian stockpiles.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon implicitly criticized the United States and Russia for failing to advance nuclear disarmament, a setback he said marked a return to a Cold War mindset.
In a speech delivered by his deputy Jan Eliasson, Ban said a nuclear-free world was the "historic imperative of our time.
