MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/. The aggression of the United States and Israel against Iran threatens the nuclear nonproliferation regime, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, stated while speaking at a meeting of the international "Trialogue" club.
"Recently, the stability of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons has been severely tested. The unprovoked, unjustified, and illegal attacks by Israel and the United States on Iran have dealt a heavy blow to the treaty and the IAEA safeguards system. These acts of aggression themselves are an egregious manifestation of a course aimed at abusing the nuclear nonproliferation regime and the NPT as its cornerstone, as well as using it as a pretext for military action against 'undesirable' foreign governments with the goal of overthrowing them or even destroying the states they govern," he indicated.
As the deputy minister recalled, not only peaceful nuclear facilities were bombed, "which is absolutely unacceptable by any standard, but also other civilian facilities, including educational and scientific institutions, and virtually the entire top leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran was killed."
"The strikes on Iran were carried out primarily in the interests of Israel, a state that has historically ignored the NPT, reserving the right to level accusations regarding nonproliferation obligations against other countries," he continued. "The United States, which supported this aggression, was one of the founding fathers of the NPT and remains one of its depositories."
"The cynicism of the situation lies in the fact that the Israeli-US attacks on Iran were carried out under the cover of negotiations, or whatever you want to call them, which were aimed at coordinating the voluntary measures being taken by Iran," Ryabkov stated. "Let me emphasize that these negotiations were supposed to develop voluntary measures beyond the NPT and intended to further confirm the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program."