Anti-U.S. allies back Iran nukes

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From combined dispatches

HAVANA -- Developing countries yesterday wrapped up a multinational summit with North Korea charging that U.S. threats drove it to acquire deterrent atomic weapons and Iran winning solid support for its nuclear ambitions.

Iran, Venezuela and Cuba joined North Korea in leading efforts to forge an anti-U.S. alliance. Summit leaders, in a statement on Iran, "reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of all states to develop research, production and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes."

They warned that any attack or threat against any nuclear facility used for peaceful purposes was a violation of international law.

North Korea took the opportunity to assail the United States for unilateral actions against individual countries and called for a revitalization of the 118-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

"The United States is attempting to deprive other countries of even their legitimate right to peaceful nuclear activities," said North Korea's second-ranking leader, Kim Yong-nam.

Mr. Kim blamed Washington for "threatening Korea using all sorts of maneuvers, accusing it of being part of an 'Axis of Evil.'"

He added: "Korea has nuclear arms as a deterrent to firmly guarantee the peace and security of the Korean Peninsula and the region."

The leaders' statement on Iran, released as the meeting ended, was an updated version of a document adopted in May at a NAM ministerial meeting in Malaysia.

They stressed that the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency found that all nuclear material declared by Iran had been accounted for.