Iran blames world powers for N Korean N-test

By Afp, Tehran
10 October 2006, 18:00 PM
Iran yesterday pinned the blame for North Korea's nuclear test on the refusal of world powers to abandon their atomic weapons, as Tehran continues to face pressure over its own nuclear programme.

"The major powers feel that they are entitled to use and produce nuclear weapons," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

"This injustice, inequality and discrimination in international law has resulted in such threats to world peace" as the North Korean test, he added.

Iran has been under massive diplomatic pressure for the past four years to abandon its own atomic drive and has bitterly complained the world's existing nuclear powers do not want Tehran to master "peaceful nuclear technology".

The Islamic republic has repeatedly insisted its own nuclear programme is solely for peaceful energy needs, vehemently rejecting Western allegations that it is seeking atomic weapons.