IAEA Backs Nuclear-Free Middle East

A resolution approved yesterday at the International Atomic Energy Agency general conference calls for freeing the Middle East of nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 7, 2006).

Fifty-three IAEA member nations supported the resolution sponsored by Egypt that calls for a making the region a nuclear-free zone, while 47 abstained.  Israel and the United States voted against the measure.

The resolution urged “all states of the region, pending the establishment of the [nuclear-free] zone, not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or permit the stationing on their territories or on territories under their control of nuclear weapons.”

The resolution also called on “nuclear–weapons states and all other states to render assistance in the establishment of the zone.”

Israel has officially neither confirmed nor denied that it possesses nuclear weapons, but its “nuclear ambiguity” policy was seemingly undermined in late 2006 when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared to suggest that Israel was a nuclear weapons power (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2006; Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 20).

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