UN atomic energy agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei will head for Israel tomorrow to pitch for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, despite the Jewish state allegedly having up to 200 nuclear weapons.
Israel has a policy of "ambiguity" under which it neither confirms nor denies it has the bombs.
But ElBaradei, director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in Moscow last week that Israel should "clarify" its nuclear activities and start working toward ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons.
IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky confirmed Saturday that these would be key topics on ElBaradei's visit tomorrow to Thursday. ElBaradei is to meet with Israeli energy officials as well as Cabinet ministers.
ElBaradei visits Israel after two other critical trips this year -- to Libya, which has disarmed its nuclear weapons programs, and to Iran.
ElBaradei's trip also follows the release from prison earlier this year of Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, who says Israel should rid itself of nuclear weapons and open up to international inspection.
Arab countries that are members of the IAEA have complained that Israel is not being investigated at a time when countries like Iran are under intense scrutiny from the UN agency.
But Israeli analyst Gerald Steinberg held out little hope for ElBaradei to make much progress.
Steinberg, from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said in a statement that Israel was not about to change its policy and sign on to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that mandates the IAEA to verify nuclear activities worldwide.
"There is no foundation for a change" since "the threat to Israel has not diminished much in the past five decades and hatred of Israel in the Arab and Muslim worlds remains intense," Steinberg said.
He said Israel was particularly worried about Iran, which the IAEA is investigating for allegedly secretly developing nuclear weapons.
Steinberg said Israel's giving up its "nuclear insurance policy ... would actually make the region more unstable" and that Israel would not accept a tradeoff "linking Iran's illegal nuclear program with pressure on Israel to abandon its deterrent."
He added that a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East "however distant, will become essentially unfeasible if Iran crosses the point of no return in its development of nuclear weapons."
ElBaradei said: "I think the message we need at the end of the day is to rid the Middle East of all weapons of mass destruction. Israel agrees with that. They say that has to be in the context of a peace agreement."
ElBaradei said that rather than waiting there should be a "parallel dialogue on security and ... the peace process. I don't think you'll have peace without people understanding what sort of security structure you will have."
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said it would be ElBaradei's first trip to Israel in six years and that he would be carrying out his mandate from the 137-member agency "to promote non-proliferation and a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East."
India and Pakistan, two other relatively new nuclear powers, have also refused to sign the NPT, while long-established nuclear states China, Britain, France, the United States and Russia are founding members of the treaty.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS