Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Tuesday said Iran was prepared to offer "necessary" guarantees on its nuclear programme if the issue is withdrawn from the UN Security Council.Mottaki said in a speech to the international Conference on Disarmament here that Iran was prepared to make efforts to build confidence if the Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany returned the issue to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "Let me seize this opportunity, and in order to show our readiness to resolve the issue, underline that if the five plus one countries refer back Iran's nuclear issues from the Security Council to the IAEA, my country will be prepared to offer necessary guarantees in order to create confidence regarding non-diversion of its nuclear programme," he said.
He did not specify what guarantees Iran was prepared to give. Mottaki suggested the diplomatic pressure would make little difference.
"An issue such as Iran's nuclear issue cannot be solved through pressure or the Security Council resolutions," he said. Mottaki accused Israel and the United States of posing the main threats to the security of the Middle East.
Mottaki told the world's top disarmament forum that Israel was the only country in the region that refuses to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty even though he said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last year acknowledged that his country had nuclear weapons - which Olmert denies doing. A nuclear-armed Israel poses "a uniquely grave threat to regional and international peace and security and requires to be seriously dealt with by the international community taking practical measures," Mottaki told the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament.
"It is surprising that while no practical step is taken to contain the real source of nuclear danger in the Middle East, my country is under tremendous pressure to renounce its inalienable right for peaceful use of nuclear energy," Mottaki said.