New York: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for setting up of an international committee to oversee nuclear disarmament of countries possessing nuclear warheads.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly session Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said his country would not give in to demands by some Western countries to suspend its nuclear programme, which, he insisted, is for peaceful purposes.

The Iranian president said his government remains open to dialogue.

"The Iranian nation is ready for a dialogue, but it has not and will not meet illegal demands," he said.

Referring to the United States, he said one of the nuclear countries "is to blame for the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... These countries are producing new generations of deadly nuclear weapons and holding nuclear stocks inaccessible to international supervision."

The Iranian president called for a committee to be set up that would represent independent states to supervise the disarmament of these nuclear powers. He also asked the UN nuclear watchdog to monitor denuclearization of these countries.

The Islamic republic is currently under three sets of relatively mild UN Security Council sanctions for defying demands to halt uranium enrichment.

Foreign ministers from the six powers engaged in the protracted nuclear talks with Iran - Russia, China, the US, France, Britain, and Germany - will meet Thursday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the French foreign ministry had said earlier.

Russia and China, veto-wielding UN Security Council members, have so far opposed extra, tougher sanctions against Iran.

 

Source : IANS