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April 4, 2010

* Tehran meeting due days after Washington nuclear summit

* Officials, experts from 60 countries invited – report

TEHRAN, April 4 (Reuters) – Iran said on Sunday China would take part in a nuclear disarmament conference in Tehran later this month, to be held just days after Chinese President Hu Jintao is due to attend a nuclear security summit in Washington.

Iran, embroiled in a deepening nuclear row with the West, says experts and officials from some 60 countries have been invited to the April 17-18 meeting in Tehran, called “Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear arms for no one”.

Iran rejects Western accusations it is seeking to develop nuclear bombs, saying its atomic work is aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more of its oil and gas.

“The Chinese have welcomed the Islamic Republic’s initiative and the idea of calling on the world to disarm and will take part in the Tehran conference,” chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency.

Jalili, who visited Beijing last week, did not say at what level China would be represented.

China, which buys large amounts of oil from Iran, has for months fended off Western calls to back further U.N. Security Council sanctions on the Islamic state.

But in moves last week that could ease strained Sino-U.S. ties, China announced Hu would attend the April 12-13 summit in Washington, while its diplomats signalled readiness to join serious talks with Western powers on new sanctions on Iran.

The United States has welcomed China’s decision to join negotiations on imposing new sanctions and said Hu’s visit to Washington for the multi-nation meeting hosted by President Barack Obama could set the stage for tougher action on Tehran.

The Washington meeting itself focuses not on reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles worldwide, but on the less controversial issue of “securing” nuclear material to prevent it falling into the wrong hands.

China is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, each wielding the power to veto any resolution and thus block proposed U.N. sanctions.

Jalili told reporters on Friday, after meeting the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Beijing, that the two sides agreed sanctions had “lost their effectiveness”.

Western powers say Tehran is violating international nuclear safeguards and have told it to curtail uranium enrichment work, which could eventually be used to make fissile material for nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear activities are peaceful and legitimate.

Iran’s envoy to the U.N. nuclear agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said “senior officials and ranking experts from various countries” would attend the international disarmament and non-proliferation meeting in Tehran, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported. (Reporting by Hashem Kalantari and Ramin Mostafavi; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Jon Hemming)