Israel Urges Nations Against Declaration
Associated Press
Date: 09-28-05
By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria - Israel urged Arab nations Wednesday to abandon a push to have it declared a menace to peace at a meeting of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency, suggesting Iran's suspect nuclear programs posed the real threat to the Middle East.
Gideon Frank, Israel's chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency's general conference, was responding to preparations by Arab countries to present a resolution stating that Israel's secretive atomic program threatened Middle East peace.
Israel neither confirms nor denies its nuclear status but is considered the only nation in the region with atomic weapons. Experts say Israel continues to produce the weapons and already has more than 200 warheads, as well as the capability to quickly build more.
Israel "will not be in a position to support" a separate resolution urging all Middle East nations to open up their nuclear programs to IAEA controls unless the plan to table a text on an Israeli threat is dropped, said Frank, the head of his country's Atomic Energy Commission.
Arab countries at the 139-nation annual conference regularly threaten to submit a resolution labeling Israel's nuclear capabilities a threat to Middle East peace but traditionally have dropped such plans, settling instead for a statement with relatively neutral language that carries much less weight than a resolution.
Of the "many alarming proliferation developments in the Middle East ... none of these involve Israel," said Frank, criticizing the "alarming attitude of some regional states to their international commitments in the nuclear domain."
While not mentioning Iran by name, he linked "alarming proliferation developments in the Middle East" to the topics of recent resolutions by the IAEA board of governors and reports by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei.
For more than two years, ElBaradei has issued reports detailing more than 18 years of secret nuclear activities by Iran, including experiments that could be used in a weapons program. The board last week adopted a resolution clearing the way to haul Iran before the U.N. Security Council for violating provisions of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and defying board requests to cease activities related to uranium enrichment ? a possible pathway to nuclear arms.
The Security Council could impose sanctions on Tehran if it determined that it violated the nuclear arms control treaty.
The draft on the Middle East to be submitted later this week only alludes to Israel, expressing concern about "the presence in the Middle East region of nuclear activities not wholly devoted to peaceful purposes."
In contrast, any resolution being considered by Arab states would be much harsher and based on a letter submitted by Oman on behalf of 15 Arab IAEA member states plus the Palestinian Authority stating that "Israel's possession of nuclear weapons is likely to lead to a destructive nuclear arms race in the region."
Ramzy Ramzy, Egypt's chief representative to the IAEA, urged ElBaradei to pressure Israel to allow an outside view of its nuclear activities as a first step toward establishing a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.
Evidence that Israel has nuclear arms is overwhelming, much of it based on details and pictures leaked in 1986 by Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu. His revelations have been supplemented by other leaks, research and statements made by Israeli leaders that stopped just short of confirming Israel's status as a weapons state.
Israel's doctrine of "nuclear ambiguity" ? never formally confirming or denying that it has such weapons ? is meant to scare enemies from considering an annihilating attack while denying them the rationale for developing their own nuclear deterrent.
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On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency, http://www.iaea.org
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