Iran has attacked the United States ahead of a major meeting on the troubled global anti-nuclear arms treaty, slamming US cooperation with Israel and India while ignoring President Barack Obama's offers of dialogue.
Four working papers prepared for the meeting by Iran show Tehran is redoubling its efforts to draw attention away from its own nuclear programme by turning the spotlight on Washington for what it says are clear breaches of the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, Western diplomats say.
The signatories of the 1970 NPT, which is aimed at halting the spread of nuclear arms and demands that those with atomic arsenals take steps to get rid of them, gather on Monday to prepare for a major conference in 2010 that many countries hope will result in an overhaul of the landmark treaty.
They want the nuclear powers to make good on disarmament pledges and agree on a plan to end loopholes that have enabled states like North Korea, which withdrew from the pact in 2003 and tested a nuclear device in 2006, to develop atomic weapons under cover of civilian nuclear energy programmes.
Iran, UN diplomats involved in the conference say, has gone on the offensive ahead of the meeting to keep the focus away from its nuclear programme, which The United States and its allies say Iran's nuclear programme is a covert quest for atomic weapons. Tehran denies the charge and has refused to halt uranium enrichment despite three rounds of UN sanctions imposed by the Security Council.
In the four papers Iran's delegation submitted for the May 4-15 NPT conference, Tehran says Washington is in clear breach of the treaty by developing new atomic weapons and providing nuclear aid to Israel and India. Neither country has signed the NPT, but India has nuclear weapons and Israel is presumed to have built up a nuclear arsenal.
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