Iran had no justification for pursuing nuclear weapons and urged the Islamic Republic to embrace overtures from the United States.
In some of Pakistan’s most pointed statements on Iran’s nuclear program, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said he wanted to avoid “another major crisis in the region.”
“In my view, I don’t think they have a justification to go nuclear,” Qureshi said at Harvard University.
“Who’s threatening Iran? I don’t see any immediate threat to Iran,” he said, while carefully adding that Pakistan accepted Iran’s “right to civilian use of technology.”
Qureshi said he has shared his views with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and told him to seize US President Barack Obama’s stated willingness to engage in dialogue to mend decades of strained US-Iranian relations.
“This administration has been extending the olive branch—make use of it. Engage the world,” Qureshi said he had told Mottaki.
Qureshi said Pakistan faces a threat from India, making its case different than Iran’s. Pakistan became the Islamic world’s only nuclear weapons state in 1998, days after its historic rival carried out similar atomic tests.
Qureshi also pointed out that Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Pakistan, India and Israel have never signed.
“They have an international obligation. They have signed NPT and they should respect that,” he said.