| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Israel: NKor supplying WMDs to six Mideast states |
| 2008-10-05 |
| Israel accused North Korea on Saturday of providing weapons of mass destruction to at least six countries in the Middle East that ignored arms-control commitments. Israel's delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spoke as the 145-nation assembly of the United Nations nuclear watchdog adopted a resolution unanimously urging North Korea to reverse steps it has taken to revive its dormant atom bomb program. Israel itself is the target of two hotly disputed Arab-sponsored draft resolutions in the assembly urging it to give up its alleged nuclear arms monopoly in the Middle East, join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and accept full IAEA inspections. Israel said there were six Middle Eastern countries which had obtained the means produce doomsday weapons and ballistic missiles covertly from North Korea while ignoring commitments as members of the NPT and other arms-control regimes. "At a time when the international community concentrates on North Korea's nuclear activities and its non-compliance with safeguards agreements, the Middle East is at the receiving end of North Korea's reckless practices," Israeli envoy David Danieli told the global meeting in Vienna. "North Korea has long become a source of proliferation of dangerous weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles in the Middle East," he said. "At least half a dozen countries in the region who do not even pay lip service to control regimes and are acting in bad faith regarding their stated policy and their undertakings regarding non-proliferation conventions have become eager recipients of North Korea mostly through black market and covert network channels," Danieli said, but did not name the six nations. Western intelligence officials and non-proliferation experts have said that Iran, Syria, Libya and Iraq under Saddam Hussein were believed to have received North Korean military aid, some applicable to mass-destruction weaponry, in the past. "No due attention is paid to this dark aspect of North Korean behavior which has become a matter of great concern to my government and others," Danieli said. He said there was growing evidence that such states were "emulating the dangerous unlawful practices" of North Korea, which left the NPT in 2003 and developed atom bombs. "[We] call the attention of the international community to these dangerous developments and their consequences," he said. U.S. envoy Chris Hill ended three days of meetings in North Korea on Friday meant to salvage the collapsing denuclearization deal, calling the talks substantive but not saying if he swayed Pyongyang to give up plans to restart its nuclear complex. The resolution passed by the IAEA assembly underlined the need for denuclearization fully verifiable by IAEA inspectors - a demand resisted by Pyongyang and at the heart of disputes that have crippled its denuclearization deal with five powers. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Hmmm, the other two would be Sudan and Pakistan. Plus, Pakistan is providing the double status of being an arms supplier as well as a recipient. Egypt is trying to get their nuclear technology through Western sources, which are more reliable, but do keep track. I wouldn't be surprised if Saudi Arabia hasn't replaced Iraq as the sixth non-listed state. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-10-05 17:28 |