UN Ban tells Iranian leaders to prove nuclear program peaceful

UN chief Ban Ki-moon met Iran's president and supreme leader in Tehran on Wednesday and urged them to take concrete steps to prove the country's nuclear program is peaceful.

He also called on all states to stop supplying arms to the conflict in Syria, Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said.    

He told reporters in New York that in separate meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the secretary-general further said that he considered their latest verbal attacks on Israel to be offensive, inflammatory and unacceptable.    

Ban arrived in Tehran on Wednesday for a three-day visit to attend a meeting of some 120 non-aligned nations. He defied calls from the United States and Israel to boycott the event.

On Syria, Ban urged Iran's leaders to use their influence to call on Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to end the violence and create conditions for "credible dialogue and a genuine political process that meets the will of the Syrian people."    

Ban expressed concern about the human rights situation in Iran and also said that he strongly objected to recent remarks by Iran's leaders on Israel.

REUTERS