OTTAWA - Jean Chretien is denouncing Iran's refusal to permit its former president to attend a nuclear disarmament conference in Japan.
The onetime Canadian prime minister -- co-chair of the influential group of former world leaders which is hosting the conference-has written Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to protest the travel ban imposed on Mohammad Khatami.
"The council was very much looking forward to hearing the perspective of Mr. Khatami and we strongly protest this restriction on his freedom," Chretien says in the letter, co-signed by former Swedish prime minister Ingvar Carlsson.
"International dialogue and mutual learning is especially critical on the crucial subject of nuclear disarmament because Iran is such a prominent participant in this debate."
Chretien and Carlsson are co-chairs of the InterAction Council, an independent organization designed to capitalize on the experience of former world leaders to promote peace, security, economic development and global ethical standards.
The council's exclusive membership includes former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, former South African president Nelson Mandela, former British prime minister John Major and former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
Khatami, the moderate former president of Iran, had planned to leave Iran Thursday night to attend the April 18-20 conference in Hiroshima, which was devastated by an atomic bomb dropped by the United States in 1945.
Iran's pro-reform Parlemannews website reported Thursday that Khatami had been barred from leaving the country.
Khatami, who oversaw a thaw in relations with the West during his 1997-2005 presidency, has been targeted by Iran's hardline regime since he opposed Ahmadinejad's re-election last June.
Khatami backed former prime minister Hossein Mousavi. Ahmadinejad won by a landslide, sparking street protests and charges of vote-rigging.
In a telephone interview from Hiroshima, Chretien said he didn't know whether the refusal to let Khatami attend the conference was due to his continuing support for Iran's reform movement or a signal of Iran's "very unfriendly attitude" toward nuclear disarmament.
"(Khatami) was with us previous years . . . and he could not come this year because we were discussing nuclear disarmament. That is the facts. The reason I cannot give."
Iran is suspected to be building a nuclear arsenal in contravention of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is signatory. U.S. President Barack Obama has called for sanctions against Iran and recently won China's support for negotiating a United Nations sanctions resolution.
Obama is making non-proliferation a signature issue, winning the agreement of 47 leaders this week to tighten controls on nuclear materials.
Chretien said the InterAction Council is hoping to build on that momentum.
"There is a lot of momentum at this moment for making nuclear armaments less important in the defence strategies of different governments," he said.
"Of course, it is a terrible weapon and there is a big desire to go to zero nuclear weapons."
