The Conference of Disarmament reports to the UN General Assembly and is billed by the UN as “the single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of the international community.”
Iran, which is a strong supporter of the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction in the world, will accede to the rotating presidency of the 65-nation conference based in Geneva on May 27 and hand it over to another country on June 23.
However, Iran’s presidency of the conference raised eyebrows in Washington which has been leading a massive propaganda against the Islamic Republic’s civilian nuclear program for more than a decade.
Erin Pelton, the spokesperson for the US Mission to the United Nations, said in a statement issued on Monday that the US would not send its ambassador to the conference.
The United States, Israel, and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.