The director general for political and international security affairs at Iran's foreign ministry, Gholamhossein Dehghani, made the remarks in an address to the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in the Austrian capital of Vienna.
Voicing concern over the persistence of such a situation; he said: “If no immediate action is taken to address this situation, the NPT’s credibility will be undermined”.
“The Review Conference should consider the delay in implementation of NPT and take major decisions on resolving it,” ISNA qouted Dehghani as saying.
“Implementation of the NPT’s requirements is neither voluntary nor subject to the other conditions so they must be fully implemented immediately and without any conditions,” he said.
“Too much covering up has left the world public opinion in the dark about the actual number of nuclear weapons in the world, going on to add that currently, the estimated number is over 15,000,” Dehghani went on to say.
“While the number of nuclear weapons today is 79 percent less than that during the Cold War, their power of destruction is far greater. Unfortunately, the world has seen arm race between nuclear powers in recent years,” he stressed.
Dehghani then slammed President Trump for his remarks about developing the US nuclear arsenal to make sure the United States is at the "top of the pack”, saying such programs are a clear invitation for an arms race and a flagrant violation of the article 6 of the NPT.
“The US needs to comply with its commitments under the JCPOA instead of accusing Iran of developing nuclear weapons and sponsoring terrorism,” he added.
The next session of Review Conference on NPT would be held in 2020.