US urges talks on Iran's obligations

WASHINGTON - The United States on Wednesday urged the United Nations chief and other participants of the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran, the capital of Iran, to use the opportunity to talk about Iran's international obligations.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland made the comment in response to UN chief Ban Ki-moon's decision to attend the meeting, as the US and Israel have urged Ban to refrain from the event and even called his trip there a "big mistake."

"Well, we've talked about our view with regard to the NAM meeting a couple of times here, including earlier this week," Nuland told reporters at a regular news briefing.

"I think I even said yesterday that we had concerns that Iran is going to manipulate this opportunity and the attendees to try to deflect attention from its own failings," she said, calling Iran a country "in violation of all kinds of UN obligations" and a destabilizing force.

Ban sees the summit as an opportunity "to convey the clear concerns and expectations of the international community" on such issues as Iran's nuclear program, terrorism and the crisis in Syria, the secretary-general's spokesman Martin Nesirky said earlier in the day.

"We hope that those who have chosen to attend, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, will make very strong points to those Iranians that they meet about their international obligations, about the opportunity that we've provided through the P5+1 talks for them to begin to come clean on their nuclear program and to solve this particular issue diplomatically and about all the other expectations that we all have of them," Nuland said.

The Western countries have alleged that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons under the cover of its nuclear program, while the Islamic republic insists on the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities.

Iran has had three rounds of talks and two meetings at the expert level since mid-April with Britain, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany, commonly known as the P5+1, over its uranium enrichment activities.

Nearly one hundred NAM members have indicated their willingness to attend the Tehran summit scheduled to be held at the end of the month.