German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the international community was determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. "We are all determined to prevent the threat of an Iran with a military nuclear programme," Merkel said in a speech Saturday to the Munich Conference on Security Policy.
Merkel said Tehran must conform with international demands to stop enriching uranium "without ifs and buts and without tricks". "What we are talking about here is a very, very sensitive technology and so we need a high degree of transparency, which Iran has failed to provide, and if Iran does not do this it risks falling deeper into isolation," Merkel said.
Iran's National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani is also attending the event in Germany. He said Saturday that the world today needs security more than ever before. Larijani, speaking to IRNA upon his arrival in Munich, said "The conference aims to establish international peace. We come from a region in which over 25 big wars have occurred in the past 20 20 years."
"We feel the pain of war and if in this conference there are signs that sustainable peace can be achieved we will consider the event as a very big and auspicious one."
Asked to comment on Merkel's inaugural speech, Larijani said that "Iran pursues a specific path in its nuclear activities which is fully transparent." "Iran's nuclear activities are under IAEA surveillance. Tehran remains committed to its undertakings under the treaty," he added.
