Iran to lobby developing states on nuclear issue

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Iran is expected to lobby developing nations to back its nuclear program next week at a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting in Malaysia where some strong anti-U.S. feeling could ensure a sympathetic ear.

NAM, born in 1961 out of resistance to Cold War geopolitics, includes all of Washington's most prominent adversaries, including Iran and North Korea -- two points on U.S. President George W. Bush's "axis of evil."

Other NAM states include Cuba, Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

"I think everybody is interested whether this meeting is going to be inundated with the nuclear issue," Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told reporters on Friday when asked if the meeting would debate Iran's nuclear activities.

"There is fear, whether through nuclear technology for energy, there will be a graduation to something that ... will become a threat to world peace and security," he added.

NAM comprises 114 countries, encompassing half of the world's population and nearly 85 percent of its oil resources. Saudia Arabia, the richest oil producer and a U.S. ally, is a member.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is to attend the NAM meeting and restate Tehran's position that it seeks to develop a peaceful nuclear-power program, not a nuclear weapon.

The Malaysian talks coincide with next week's meeting of major-power foreign ministers in Europe to finalize a package of incentives and sanctions aimed at giving Iran a stark choice if it continues sensitive activities such as uranium enrichment.

President Bush said on Thursday he would consider offering incentives to Iran if it agreed to abandon enrichment that Washington believed was aimed at producing a nuclear bomb.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an Islamic hard-liner, has dismissed Western pressure as "psychological propaganda" and visited fellow Muslim states Malaysia and Indonesia in recent months to drum up support for his nuclear program.

Apart from Iran, North Korea's nuclear program, conflict in the Palestinian territories and selection of candidates to become the next United Nations chief are also expected to be discussed.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar and diplomats from North Korea are due to attend the meeting, as are some candidates vying to succeed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who completes his second five-year term in December.

Annan says his successor should be Asian but has not anointed anyone. Among the three declared candidates, at least one, Sri Lankan diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala, will attend the meeting.

The meeting, set for Monday and Tuesday, was called to frame the agenda for a September NAM summit in Cuba, which is taking over the three-year chairmanship of the grouping from Malaysia.

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