Rouhani voices Iran's opposition to WMDs

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani underlined the peaceful nature of the country's nuclear program, and said Tehran doesn’t seek to produce Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and is opposed to any form of violence and extremism. "The Iranian nation is not after the WMDs and has, in fact, been a victim of such weapons," Rouhani said before leaving Tehran for New York at Mehrabad airport on Monday. He will participate in the 68th annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York which opened on 17 September. President Rouhani said he and other Iranian officials attending the UN meeting will try their best to show the real face of the Iranian nation to the other countries, and said, "We will strive to inform the world of the Iranian nation's voice in opposition to any violence and extremism." He also condemned the cruel western sanctions against Iran, and said, "The path of sanctions is an illegal and unacceptable path which will not lead them (the westerners) to their goals, they should rather choose the path of interaction, talks and understanding based on common interests." Israel and its western allies, specially the US, have been using all their power to push Tehran into isolation. Tel Aviv and its main ally Washington accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the western embargos for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed the West's demand as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.