Playing by the rules on nuclear non-proliferation

The Guardian:

Friday September 9, 2005

The Iranian ambassador (Comment, September 8) says the west "placed a question mark over Iran's right to access technology that would enable it to have a civilian nuclear power programme", and that the Europeans demanded the abandonment of all Iranian nuclear activities. The Europeans have never tried to prevent Iran from building a successful civilian programme. In July, France, Germany and the UK, with EU support, presented a proposal which included an offer to help Iran to develop such a programme. But Iran chose to reject this offer without serious consideration.

The European side did not change its tone as a result of US policy. We have been entirely consistent in our goals. The US has followed the progress of the European initiative and has become increasingly supportive of our approach. The Europeans did not "cease to respect the spirit of the Paris agreement", as Ambassador Adeli alleges. Iran chose to breach the Paris agreement, as well as IAEA board resolutions, by restarting part of its nuclear fuel cycle activities without providing guarantees that they would not be used for military purposes.

I suspect that most of your readers would be horrified if Iran developed nuclear weapons. We know for certain that Iran ran a covert nuclear programme, in breach of its obligations to the IAEA, for 18 years. It denied, and then was forced to admit, its procurement programme through the AQ Khan network that helped North Korea and Libya with its nuclear weapons programmes. The IAEA has failed to find satisfactory answers to outstanding questions it posed to them.

Our aim is to use diplomatic means to ensure Iran does not cheat the international system and brings more instability to the Middle East. The onus is on Iran to prove to the world that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon.

Dr Kim Howells

MP Minister of state, Foreign Office

Kate Hudson's claim (Letters, September 2) that Britain's attitude to nuclear disarmament flies in the face of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is simply wrong. The Labour government has an extremely good record on nuclear disarmament. We have not replaced old systems with more powerful ones - in fact we have cut the explosive power of our operational nuclear weapons by 70% since the end of the cold war. Trident is now our only nuclear system, with a single submarine on patrol at a time, carrying detargeted missiles.

She is also incorrect that no parliamentary debate on this issue have taken place. On every occasion that I have been at the despatch box, this issue has been discussed. Let me repeat that we have not made any decision on a replacement for Trident, nor do we have a requirement for so called "battlefield" nuclear weapons. What we do have is a Labour government elected earlier this year on a manifesto that commits us to retain the independent nuclear deterrent.

John Reid

MP Secretary of state for Defence