Pak nukes has more to do with India than Iran: Turkey

I / Washington April 16, 2010, 11:04 IST

Pakistan's nuclear weapons has more to do with India than Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said.

"Nobody thinks that there is an arms race between Pakistan and Iran on nuclear issue. It is more Pakistan-India balance of power," Davutoglu said in response to a question after his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-based think tank.

"Usual contrast in the Middle East is Iran and Israel, not Iran and Pakistan," he said. "But we hope that Pakistan and India, they will have the same principles to be implemented there. We don't have any exception here. The principles should be applicable to all," the Turkish Foreign Minister said.

Responding to a question on nuclear disarmament, he said Turkey is in its favour.

"In fact, everybody is in favour of peace. (US) President (Barack) Obama also issued - that's part of the reason why we had this summit, so if there is such an international commitment, of course, the nuclear issues in Turkey have to be resolved in that package," he said.

It is part of that issue, but the difference between Israel, Iran and Turkey is we are partner or part of NPT. We are loyal to NPT and it is not the nuclear capacity you mentioned is not our national capacity. We don't have any nuclear warhead or anything, any nuclear weapon or system in national capacity. We don't have such a thing, he said.

"We are subject to NPT and we want all the countries subject to NPT. If NPT is important for the future of humanity, there should not be exclusion. Both Iran -- I mentioned this -- and Iran must restrict their -- they are member of IAEA, they are party of NPT.

"Israel is a member of IAEA but not part of NPT. We hope that there will be a common criteria in our region and hopefully in the world that everybody will respect the same principles, based on the same framework. Turkey doesn't have any ambition for having nuclear weaponry system," he said.

We hope that there will be nuclear disarmament and we will achieve this together, Davutoglu said.

"We identified and we are still underlining three basic principles on the Iranian nuclear programme. The first principle is obtaining nuclear technology for peaceful purposes are a right of all nations. There should not be any limit for peaceful nuclear technology, development of peaceful nuclear technology.

"What is the limit of this is NPT agreement and IAEA regulations. Everybody must respect these two, and as Turkey we are committed to these international arrangements and regulations. And we expect everybody to commit to this," he said.

"But if a country commits to this and implements this, there should not be any limit on obtaining this one.