Israel Refuses To Join Anti-Nuclear Treaty

Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Courtesy Of "The Daily Times"

* Says Arab-led campaign to undermine arms control efforts in ME

* UN atomic watchdog ‘overstepping mandate’ in demanding Jewish state to join anti-nuclear arms treaty

VIENNA: Israel said on Tuesday an Arab-led campaign to single it out at the UN atomic watchdog could undermine any arms control measures in the Middle East.

The warning highlighted US concern that the Arab drive at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would upset a plan to hold a conference in 2012 towards establishing a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

Israel’s nuclear chief said on Tuesday that it was against Israel’s interests to join a global anti-nuclear arms treaty and that the UN atomic watchdog was ‘overstepping’ its mandate in demanding it to do so.

Arab states have tabled a resolution at the IAEA annual conference in Vienna for Israel to foreswear nuclear weapons and sign up to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Arab states say there cannot be peace in the Middle East until Israel gives up nuclear arms.

Israel has never confirmed nor denied having atomic bombs, under a policy of ambiguity to deter its Arab and Islamic adversaries. “Israel is not the only member state ... that has exercised its sovereign right not to accede to the NPT due to its national security considerations,” Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission chief Shaul Chorev said.

“Yet Israel is the only state that has been singled out, and is called upon to take a decision which is against its best national interests,” he told the conference.

“Indeed, the advancement of states’ accessions to international treaties does not fall within the mandate of the (IAEA),” he said.

The NPT, which came into force in 1970, has been signed by 189 states. Only three countries – India, Pakistan and Israel – have not signed it.

North Korea is among those that acceded to the treaty but violated it and withdrew in 2003.

The Jewish state is the only Middle East power believed to possess nuclear weapons.

Chorev said the resolution tabled by the Arab states was part of a “political campaign to defame the state of Israel”.

It was “incompatible with basic principles and norms of international law and does not fall within the mandate of the agency as defined in its statute,” he said.

“Moreover, this resolution ... ignores the adverse reality in the Middle East region,” Chorev said. He said that Middle East states such as Iran, Syria, Libya and Iraq under Saddam Hussein – all signatories to the NPT – had “grossly violated their treaty obligations”.

“The serious threat to the NPT and the non-proliferation regime is posed from within by those states that pursue nuclear weapons under the cover of their NPT membership.” agencies