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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israel rejects NPT conference for nuclear free Middle East |
| 2010-05-30 |
| TORONTO - Israel on Saturday denounced as “hypocritical' a UN resolution by members of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty calling for a conference on a nuclear-free Middle East and said it would not participate. “This resolution is deeply flawed and hypocritical. It ignores the realities of the Middle East and the real threats facing the region and the entire world,' said a statement issued by the Israeli government in Toronto, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Canada. “It singles out Israel, the Middle East's only true democracy and the only country threatened with annihilation,' the statement added. “Given the distorted nature of this resolution, Israel will not be able to take part in its implementation.' The Jewish state has reacted furiously to the agreement reached Friday at the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, which called for a regional conference in 2012 to advance the goal of a nuclear-free Middle East. The accord specifically mentions “the importance of Israel's accession to the treaty and the placement of all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards.' But it failed to make similar reference to other nations including India and Pakistan that, like Israel, are non-members of the treaty and are either known or believed to possess nuclear weapons. The text also made no mention of Iran, which faces a new round of United Nations sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment as part of a nuclear program that many in the international community fear masks a nuclear weapons drive. Tehran says the program is for civilian nuclear energy only. President Barack Obama said Friday he supported those goals, but he criticized the agreement for its focus on Israel. “We strongly oppose efforts to single out Israel, and will oppose actions that jeopardize Israel's national security,' he said. Israeli officials welcomed the statement from Obama and clarifications from other senior US officials that the conference would not take place without Israeli consent. Still, Israel had been hoping the US would have prevented the agreement in the first place and officials had been in close, constant contact with the US in the run up to the vote. The Israeli official refrained from criticizing the US failure ahead of Tuesday's meeting, but conceded that “the American administration has changed its policy on non proliferation.' “We have not finished discussing this subject. We haven't heard the last on this subject,' the official said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |