Iran blames West for stalled nuclear talks

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Iran's foreign minister is putting the blame on Western nations for the failure of nuclear disarmament efforts.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a U.N. commission that a "lack of real political will" among some Western nations was preventing U.N. nuclear disarmament agencies from making meaningful progress in eliminating nuclear weapons.

Mottaki said the international community should put more pressure on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor its nuclear facilities. He said unspecified Western nations were guilty of taking a selective approach to the issue, PRESSTV said Saturday.

Mottaki said at the Friday session of the Conference on Disarmament that proliferation talks should resume in earnest and produce an agreement to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2025.