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Iran has offered to work with Germany to draw up an “all-encompassing
nuclear disarmament treaty” with a clear deadline for total annihilation
of atomic weapons.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki first introduced the
offer in a Friday meeting with his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle
on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

“Other than our two countries, other states can take part in this
initiative,” said Mottaki, recollecting how various countries had come
together to seal the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Mottaki made the remarks just days after the ‘Global Zero’ summit in
Paris, which brought together some 200 politicians, generals,
businessmen, clerics, academics and arms experts in the hope of finding a
way to total nuclear disarmament.

Both US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry
Medvedev sent messages of support to the international assembly.

In his message, Obama reaffirmed his campaign promise that “a world
without nuclear weapons . . . is one of my highest priorities.”

Obama and Medvedev are finalizing a major new treaty to dismantle
2,000 of the 5,000 strategic (long-range) warheads they have in their
stockpiles.

However, Obama and Medvedev together control 95 per cent of the
world’s 23,000 nukes.