Tehran To Take Part In Nuclear-Free Middle East Conference

The control room of the Isfahan uranium conversion facility, 420 kilometers south of Tehran.

Iran has said it would take part in a proposed international conference in December on creating a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the announcement in Brussels where he attended a seminar on nuclear nonproliferation.

No date has yet been set for the meeting, which is set to take place in the Finnish capital, Helsinki.

The conference will seek to establish a zone without nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction in the volatile region.

Tehran has held years of on-off talks with Western nations over its nuclear development program, which it says is for civilian purposes but which the West suspects is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters