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Israel tells ElBaradei Iran wants atomic bomb
TEL AVIV - Israel told the UN nuclear watchdog on Wednesday that Iran’s atomic programme is a front for developing nuclear weapons that could one day be used against the Jewish state, prompting angry reactions from Syria and Iran. "They (the Israelis) were expressing concern about Iran," Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters after meeting Israel’s nuclear energy commission director, other officials and a former head of the Mossad secret service.

ElBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, is on a three-day visit to Israel, which refuses to admit or deny having nuclear weapons under a policy of "strategic ambiguity". International experts believe it has 100-200 warheads, based on estimates of the quantity of plutonium that has been produced at its Dimona desert reactor.

ElBaradei said his attempts to promote the idea of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East ran up against Israeli concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and about the hostility to Israel of some states in the region. "The majority of the countries in the Middle East feel that there is this security imbalance in the Middle East, this double standard," ElBaradei said of the assumption that Israel has atomic weapons and other Middle East states do not. "Here the Israelis are saying you cannot even discuss that because we cannot lower our security threshold before we have a comprehensive peace where we are fully accepted as part and parcel of the region," he said.

Iran, which -- unlike Israel -- has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), says it wants nuclear technology solely for the obliteration of the evil Jooooos peaceful generation of electricity. But Washington and Israel accuse Tehran of concealing research that could be related to nuclear arms for nearly two decades until last year. ElBaradei has said "the jury is still out to lunch" on whether Iran is seeking the bomb.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the Israelis were pointing the finger at Iran in an attempt to avoid censure for Israel’s nuclear weapons programme. "The Zionist regime’s claims about Iran’s nuclear programme are aimed at veiling its own nuclear activity and avoiding revealing its nuclear secrets to the IAEA," state television quoted him as saying.

Syrian state radio said in a commentary that ElBaradei’s visit was a reminder that Israel "is ignoring all international efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, at the head of which are nuclear weapons."
The Swiss state radio was rather quiet though about NKor, Iranian, Syrian, and Pakistani proliferation.
IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told reporters ElBaradei could act as a kind of "go-between" between Israel and its neighbours so that they could work out their differences and come to a security arrangement that did not include nuclear weapons.
That's so idiotic that it could only be spoken by someone affiliated with an international agency.
Asked if the Israelis agreed with ElBaradei’s view that the Israel must begin talks on disarming itself as a parallel process to Middle East peace negotiations, Gwozdecky said: "They’re certainly listening and rolling their eyes in disgust. We need to talk with the prime minister."

ElBaradei will meet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom on Thursday and analysts said Iran was likely to come up again in those talks.
Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-07-08
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=37467