Experts said Wednesday that Israel continues to produce atomic weapons and may already have as many as 300 warheads, as the country released a man imprisoned for 18 years for leaking nuclear secrets.
Because Israel is not party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has no power to look into its nuclear program, which has been shrouded in secrecy for decades.
The UN agency, however, is seeking dialogue with Israel, and Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei repeatedly has called for talks on the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.
Israel neither denies nor confirms that it has nuclear weapons.
Through the end of last year, Israel had enough nuclear material to make 100 to 200 weapons, said David Albright, a former Iraq nuclear inspector who runs the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. Even the low-end estimate "is huge" for a country in such a volatile region, Albright said.
"Israel tends to view any restrictions on its nuclear weapons production very negatively," he said.
Israeli authorities on Wednesday released Mordechai Vanunu, jailed since 1986 for leaking details and pictures of Israel's alleged nuclear weapons program. Based on his account, experts said at the time that Israel had the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Israel continues to make nuclear weapons, said Friedrich Steinhaeusler, a former IAEA nuclear safety employee who now is a professor of physics at the University of Salzburg, specializing in illicit trafficking and nuclear terrorism.
"One hundred and fifty is the best estimate at the moment" of how many weapons the country holds, Steinhaeusler said, adding that the figure hasn't been verified.
With air, sea and land-based launching systems, "they have the Middle East under control," he said.
Avner Cohen, an expert on Israel and nuclear weapons at the Center for International and Security Studies in Maryland, said "there is a lot of uncertainty" about the number of weapons held by Israel.
"There are all kind of estimates, from the upper teens on the lower side to over 300 on the higher side," he said.
John Simpson, director of the Mountbatten Center of International Studies at Britain's University of Southampton, estimated the number of atomic weapons held by Israel at no more than 200.
Simpson said his estimate was based on the presumed output of plutonium by a reactor in Dimona, and on the number of tunnels in cliffs from which the weapons could be deployed.
"What the Israelis might well have is the capability to test very rapidly ... and that would enable them to move from a very conservative weapons design to a much less conservative weapons design," Simpson said. That would mean that the country quickly could increase its arsenal after beginning testing, he said.
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