Member states of the UN nuclear agency voted down an Arab-backed resolution targeting the Jewish state for criticism over its clandestine nuclear weapons arsenal.
Fifty-one countries voted against the so-called ‘Israeli Nuclear Capabilities’ measure and 43 states voted for it in what was viewed as a victory for the United States, which opposed the initiative.
Arab states, exasperated over the postponement last year of an
international conference on banning atomic arms in the region,
proposed the measure at the annual member state gathering of the
UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The US had pushed
for the Jewish state’s neighbors to refrain from putting the text
forward.
If adopted, Israel would have been compelled to join the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and place its nuclear facilities
under IAEA monitoring. Diplomats had expected a close vote.
The United States said the move would endanger broader diplomatic
efforts to create a Middle Zone free of weapons of mass
destruction. Israel said it would severely undermine efforts to
hold regional security talks.
Despite the warnings, Ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, head of
the Arab League group at the IAEA, earlier said the draft
resolution would go ahead.
"The world has to know that Israel is not playing a constructive
role, that Israel has a [nuclear] capability," Ramzy told
Reuters.
Iran for its part said this week Israel's nuclear activities
"seriously threaten regional peace and security."
World powers agreed in 2010 to an Egyptian plan intended to lay
the groundwork for establishing a Middle East free of weapons of
mass destruction.
The US, who co-sponsored the meeting, said it would not take
place as scheduled last December and did not forward a new date.
Arab diplomats said they had held back on proposing the
resolution over the last two years in a failed bid to buoy
chances for the Middle East conference.
"We have engaged seriously and constructively in the preparations
[for the conference]. The Israelis have been playing for time,
delaying. We have never seen enough seriousness on their
part," Ramzy said.
Israel's atomic energy chief, Shaul Chorev, said that Arab states
were using this week’s IAEA meeting as a platform for
"repeatedly bashing" his country. The Arab-backed
resolution only deepens "existing distrust" among the region's
countries, he said.
‘Nuclear arms make Israel a target’
Israel is believed to possess anywhere from 75 to as many as 400
nuclear weapons, including thermonuclear weapons in the megaton
range. Israel has never confirmed or denied being in possession
of the arms.
In the most recent US report on the Israeli arsenal, published
in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, nuclear weapon
proliferation experts Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen
assess that Israel stopped producing nuclear warheads back in
2004 once it reached around 80 munitions.
However, the country can easily double its arsenal since it has
enough fissile material to build at least another 115 bombs, the
experts say.
Despite potentially being the only nuclear-armed state in the
region, Israel officials and their US allies believe that Iran’s
uranium enrichment program is the main proliferation threat. They
contend that a nuclear-free Middle East can only be achieved when
concerted efforts are made to curb Iran’s atomic energy program.
In an interview with NBC News which aired on Wednesday, Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani said Iran would never develop nuclear weapons and that he had
"complete authority" to negotiate a nuclear deal with the
United States and other Western powers.
His sentiments mirrored a September 2004 fatwa issued by Iranian
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei which said “the
production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden
under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never
acquire these weapons.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dismissive of
“the Iranian president's fraudulent words."
"The Iranians are spinning in the media so that the
centrifuges can keep on spinning," a statement from the
Israeli PM’s office read.
Weighing in on the issue on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir
Putin said that Israel’s assumed nuclear weapons stockpile made
the country “a target” and “create foreign policy
problems,” AFP reported.
Putin said “the technical advantage of Israel – we need to say
this directly – is such that it doesn’t need nuclear weapons.
Israel is already in a technical military sense several heads
above the countries in the region.”
He added that Syria had developed chemical weapons “as an
alternative to the nuclear weapons of Israel.”