Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Thursday he opposed any military action against Iran even if it pursues building a nuclear weapon. "If we are talking about military action, then the question will be who will take this military action? Who will do it and who has the right to do so?" Gaddafi told the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in New York.
Gaddafi said action against Iran could set a dangerous precedent, noting that other countries including India, Pakistan, China, Russia, the United States and Israel have - or in Israel's case are assumed to have - atomic weapons. "All of them have nuclear bombs. Why not take military action against them?" Gaddafi said. No country believes Iran yet has a usable nuclear weapon and experts differ over when it might develop one.
Iran itself strongly denies it trying to build atomic arms and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But Israel says it is in serious danger from Iran, whose president has called for the elimination of the Jewish state. Israeli leaders have refused to rule out the option of attacking Iran to try to destroy its nuclear facilities.
The United States, Britain and other nations have normalised relations with Libya in recent years, and business with the oil-producing country has grown, particularly after Tripoli gave up its own nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in 2003.
Gaddafi, who on Wednesday addressed the UN General Assembly for the first time in his 40 years as Libya's leader, said Tripoli "would not support Iran having nuclear weapons." The UN Security Council debated nuclear proliferation at a meeting on Thursday chaired by US President Barack Obama, but Gaddafi was the only one of 15 national leaders entitled to attend the meeting who failed to show up.
That headed off what potential diplomatic embarrassment had he and Obama come in hand-shaking range. Anti-Libyan feeling is running strong in the United States after Scotland last month released a Libyan official convicted of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Gaddafi repeated Libyan denials of government responsibility for the attack.
Asked why Libya had decided to give up its nuclear ambitions, Gaddafi said: "We realised that it was more costly to Libya than it was beneficial and we decided to cancel that program and get rid of it." Gaddafi also said it was in Opec oil producer Libya's best interests to have good ties with the West. "This is the world that has the technology and know-how and that would be beneficial to Libya to have good relations with such a world," he said.
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