Iran asks Switzerland to host nuclear talks: newspaper

[struggle4progress]

Iran has asked Switzerland to host an international conference to help resolve issues related to its nuclear program, a Swiss newspaper reported on Sunday.

The request for the conference was made by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at a meeting in Tehran with a senior Swiss government official last week, the Zurich-based NZZ am Sonntag newspaper quoted "reliable sources" as saying.

Iran hopes the conference to be participated not only by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia, but also countries like Japan and Spain and possibly India and Pakistan, the newspaper added ...

No Swiss or Iranian official sources have so far confirmed NZZ am Sonntag's report.

http://english.people.com.cn/200607/24/eng20060724_286014.html

[ShockediSay]

1. Since they are in the world's spotlight, unlike some of the more mature

nuclear powers, they are obviously foot dragging.

But if Israel can hit US w/ nuclear blackmail (see Kissinger papers)

and other neighbors like Pakistan, India, Russia, ?North Korea?

why shouldn't they go all out for nukes?

If nobody is seriously disarming, what would you do???

[struggle4progress]

2. Nobody's shown that Iran is in violation of the NPT, to which they

are a signatory, though Iran has threatened to withdraw from the NPT if this extraordinarily hypocritical crap continues. Since one of Bolton's earlier assignments was to sabotage ongoing NPT work, it's credible that the Administration's real goal is to undermine the NPT, which the Administration regards with the same ideological hostility that it feels to all enforceable international agreements. The exceptional nuclear deal with India (a non-NPT state), which the Administration is now trying to ram through Congress, will further weaken the NPT and destabilize the nonproliferation environment, as suggested by the parallel reaction of Pakistan (another non-NPT state), now accelerating its weapons-production capacity

[ShockediSay]

3. Informative - tip of the cap 2ya

& keep strugglin'