Iran voices strong support for NPT

For the first time in the seven-decade effort to avert a nuclear war, the United Nations formally adopted on Friday a document, called the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, at UN headquarters in New York during the final session of the negotiation conference which lasted for three weeks.

Addressing the conference after the adoption of the treaty by a vote of 122 in favor, Iran's Ambassador and Permanent Representative in International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Reza Najafi voiced Iran’s strong support for the objective of the treaty to prohibit possession and use or threat of using nuclear weapons in the world.

He noted that Iran has been a victim of weapons of mass destruction, and highlighted Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa against the use of such weapons.

Najafi drew attention to the threat over the Middle East posed by nuclear weapons in possession of the Israeli regime, adding "Iran’s proposal for creating a Middle East free of nuclear weapons has been an instance of our efforts for eliminating the threat of such weapons in the region.”

The document will be open for signature by any member state starting on Sept. 20 during the annual General Assembly and would enter into legal force 90 days after being ratified by 50 countries.

All of the world’s eight nuclear-armed countries, including the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea as well as the Israeli regime had boycotted the negotiations.