Arab nations and “even the Palestinians” should be allowed nuclear weapons as long as Israel’s nuclear ambitions are tolerated, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said in an interview broadcast yesterday.
Israel is widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear state, and Qaddafi told Britain’s Sky News television that the international community should also allow its Arab neighbors to develop nuclear weapons.
“If the Israelis have the nuclear weapons and the nuclear capabilities, then it is the right of the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Saudis to have the same — even the Palestinians should have the same because their counterparts, or their opponents, have nuclear capabilities,” he said.
“And, if we don’t want this situation, so we’ll have to disarm the Israelis from their nuclear weapons and capabilities,” he said.
Qaddafi said he would oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons if it acknowledges such a goal, but noted Tehran’s insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful — something that Western powers dispute.
“Iran, up to now, hasn’t said it is manufacturing a nuclear weapon: Iran says it is enriching uranium,” Qaddafi said.
“If Iran were to manufacture nuclear weapons, nuclear arms, then all of us, including us, will be against them. But Iran has not said so,” he said. “Our position is clear and it should be clear and evident ... that we are against anyone who manufactures, possesses a nuclear weapon, whether it is Iran, America, Libya, or the Israelis.”
Meanwhile, Qaddafi apologized for the first time for the killing of a British policewoman shot from the Libyan embassy in London in 1984. However, he also said that the killer had not been identified.
Yvonne Fletcher, 25, was shot in the back while policing a peaceful demonstration outside the embassy on April 17, 1984.
Qaddafi was asked if he had a message for Fletcher’s family.
“She is not an enemy to us, and we are sorry all the time and our sympathy, because she was on duty, she was there to protect the Libyan embassy, but this is the problem that should be solved — but who did it?” he said.
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