The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, has called on Israel to relinquish its nuclear weapons as part of a general peace agreement in the Middle East. In an interview with Haaretz, ElBaradei said Israel should follow the path taken by South Africa, the first and only country to part from its nuclear cache, when its weapons were destroyed under IAEA supervision in 1989. In his first interview with the Israeli media, ElBaradei said he recommends that Israel join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He said that in spite of Israel’s policy of not acknowledging possession of nuclear weapons, "we operate under the assumption that Israel has nuclear arms. Israel has never denied this," he said from his office at Vienna headquarters of the UN organization.
The senior UN diplomat said the notion that Israel is safer today with nuclear weapons than it was 50 years ago is incorrect. "Frankly, I am not happy with the status quo, because I see a lot of frustration in the Middle East due to Israel’s sitting on nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons capability, while other parties in the Middle East are committed to the NPT," he said. The Egyptian diplomat, who has headed the IAEA for seven years, suggested that Israel and its neighbors begin a dialogue for the eradication of weapons of mass destruction. "My fear is that without such a dialogue, there will be continued incentive for the region’s countries to develop weapons of mass destruction to match the Israeli arsenal, and as you know, there are already weapons of mass destruction in the region," he said. "Israel has nuclear, maybe biological and chemical [weapons]; others have biological weapons. It’s not an incentive for security in the region." |