Nuclear meeting chief aims to lift Iran challenge

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - The Japanese chairman of a meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty said on Tuesday he was determined to persuade Iran to lift objections threatening to paralyse the gathering.

At the opening session on Monday Iran balked at an agenda focusing on non-compliance with the NPT, which requires members without nuclear bombs not to acquire them and commits the original five nuclear powers to phase out their arsenals.

Tehran's envoy at the Vienna meeting objected to a line in the agenda "reaffirming the need for full compliance", saying this would wrongly focus debate too much on one country.

Japanese chairman Yukiya Amano told Reuters he was resolved to preserve the line but try to win over Iran.

"I intend to stick to the agenda because things have changed. North Korea exploded a nuclear device so we really must reaffirm the need for compliance," he said.

The two-week NPT "Preparatory Committee" meeting, comprising 189 member states and aimed at drafting priorities for the next full review of the treaty in 2010, coincides with major challenges to the accord posed by Iran and North Korea.

North Korea's detonated a nuclear device in 2006 after walking out of the NPT and expelling U.N. inspectors. Iran is enriching uranium in defiance of U.N. resolutions demanding that it stop due to suspicions it is secretly seeking nuclear bombs.

Iran, hit by U.N. sanctions over its nuclear activity, says it aims only to generate electricity.