AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
VIENNA: Arab nations on Thursday asked the UN's atomic energy watchdog, the IAEA, to adopt a resolution condemning Israel's nuclear activities — even as the UN pressured Iran on the same issue in New York.
Fifteen Arab countries along with Indonesia and Iran have placed a draft resolution concerning “Israel's nuclear capacities and threats” on the agenda of the IAEA's forthcoming general assembly, scheduled for Friday.
“For the first time since 1991” — when a similar resolution was adopted — “they seem ready to go all the way in dealing with this question,” only six weeks after the Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon, a Western diplomat said.
“If the draft resolution is kept on the agenda, there is also a good chance it will be adopted,” putting Western powers — who pushed through a resolution condemning Iran's nuclear programme via the IAEA's Board of Governors — in an awkward position, the diplomat said.
In recent years similar resolutions against Israel have been proposed, but none found their way onto the IAEA's formal agenda because of Israeli support for an Egyptian appeal for a ban on nuclear weapons in the Middle East, he said.
But Syria's representative at the IAEA, Ibrahim Othman, one of the main sponsors of the resolution targeting Israel, told the agency's 141 members that Israel's “criminal aggression against Lebanon and Palestine” required that a formal text be adopted.
“It is true that the conflict in Lebanon complicated things, but we can't hope that they will pull back as has happened in the past,” another Western diplomat said of the proposed resolution.
Negotiations were underway on Wednesday on the sidelines of official IAEA meetings in Vienna, he said.
The presence of this item on the agenda would put Western powers in an awkward position by forcing them to take a position on Israel's nuclear activities.
The issue rarely comes up at the IAEA because Israel — unlike Iran — is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The Jewish state refuses to acknowledge or deny that it possesses nuclear arms, but most experts agree that it has at least 200 atom bombs at the ready.
On Wednesday Israel's representative at the IAEA, Gideon Frank, made it clear — though without mentioning Iran by name — that his country would not “remain indifferent” to Tehran's alleged nuclear arms programme, whose existence “seriously compromises the stability of the region” and poses “an existential threat” for Israel.
At the same time, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said during the UN General Assembly in New York that the international community must face up to the “rising danger” posed by Tehran.
World powers have given Iran until early October to respond to an offer to negotiate the cessation of their uranium enrichment activities or face sanctions, according to diplomats.
But the Arab nations “are tired of double standards,” with Iran — which claims that its nuclear programme is strictly for generating electricity only — threatened with sanctions, while no mention is made of Israel, a Middle Eastern diplomat in Vienna said.
“We can count on a marathon session Friday with a flurry of amendments and separate votes,” the first Western diplomat said, noting that the resolution could still pass even if Western nations abstain.
