Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying it was requesting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to place all Israeli nuclear facilities under the inspection and regulation of the global nuclear authority.
During a session of the UN atomic agency on Saturday, Qatar’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office and International Organizations in Vienna, Jassim Yacoub al-Hammadi, called on Israel to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). He added that all Middle Eastern countries, except for Israel, are parties to the NPT and have effective safeguard agreements with the IAEA.
NPT is an international agreement aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and related technology, promoting cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and advancing the goal of nuclear disarmament and overall disarmament. The treaty was negotiated between 1965 and 1968 by the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament, a UN-sponsored organization based in Geneva, Switzerland.
“Hammadi underscored the need for the international community and its institutions to uphold their commitments under resolutions of the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the IAEA, and the 1995 Review Conference of the NPT, which called on Israel to subject all its nuclear facilities to IAEA safeguards,” the Qatari statement read.
Four states, India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Sudan, have never signed the treaty. India and Pakistan have publicly disclosed their nuclear weapon programs, and Israel has a long-standing policy of deliberate ambiguity regarding its nuclear program. Based on the revelations by rogue nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu, Israel is believed to possess 600 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, making it the only country in West Asia with non-conventional nuclear weapons.
Israel was allegedly the sixth country to develop a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the international community must push Israel to join the NPT and put all its nuclear facilities under the IAEA Safeguards.
Good to know.
