Of course: Iranian President Rohani calls on Israel to sign NPT
A gut yor - a good year to everyone.
A reminder that I am online tonight because in Israel all holidays except for Rosh HaShanna are one day.
It should come as a surprise to no one that Iranian President Hassan Rohani has
called on Israel to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Let's go to the videotape.
Calling for a "nuclear-free zone" in the Middle East, Rouhani said
that Israel was the only country in the region that had not yet signed
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and requested that it do so
"without delay."
The developed world focuses on preventing states
without nuclear weapons from acquiring them, Rouhani said, but the
international community should also focus on disarming countries that
have stockpiled hundreds or thousands of them since Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
"Nonproliferation derives its legitimacy from the larger
objective of nuclear disarmament," he said, calling for a "high-level"
conference within five years geared toward the "complete elimination" of
the greatest weapons.
In a veiled reference to a Russian-brokered
deal that will rid Syria of its massive chemical weapons stockpile,
Rouhani said "all weapons of mass destruction" should be eliminated in
the Middle East.
Addressing the General Assembly in his capacity
as the head of the Non-Aligned Movement, Rouhani commended the "valuable
contribution" of nuclear weapon-free zones to international peace and
security. "A peaceful and secure world remains a shared ideal for us
all," he said.
"We have an architecture of treaties and norms that aim
to achieve this agreed goal, yet thousands of these weapons continue to
pose the greatest threat to peace.
"Almost four decades of
international efforts to establish nuclear weapon-free zones have
regrettably failed," he said. "Urgent, practical steps toward the
establishment of such a zone are necessary. The international community
has to redouble efforts in support of the establishment of this zone."
What Rohani of course fails to mention is that none of the western democracies that have nuclear weapons have ever threatened to use them, whereas countries like Iran and North Korea threaten to do so constantly.
We'll give up our nuclear weapons - if we have them - when the rest of the countries of this region make peace with us and stop calling for our destruction. That's not going to happen in your lifetime or mine.
Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli nuclear capability, Nuclear Proliferation Treaty
Final assault on Israel? UN General Assembly calls on Israel to allow nuclear inspectors
We can thank President Hussein Obama for opening this Pandora's box as well. The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to call on Israel to
open its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection. The resolution also expressed support for a now-canceled (although one of the sponsors - Britain - says it's only been postponed) conference of all of the signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. And wait - it gets better.
There were two paragraphs of the resolution that were voted on separately and one of them - to which the US voted in favor! - calls on all countries to immediately join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Only Israel and India voted against that one (Hat Tip:
MFS - The Other News).
All the Arab nations and Iran had planned to attend the conference in
mid-December in Helsinki, Finland, but the United States announced on
Nov. 23 that it wouldn’t take place, citing political turmoil in the
region and Iran’s defiant stance on nonproliferation. Iran and some Arab
nations countered that the real reason for the cancellation was
Israel’s refusal to attend.
The resolution, approved by a vote of 174-6 with 6 abstentions, calls on
Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty “without further
delay” and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the
International Atomic Energy Agency. Those voting “no” were Israel, the
U.S., Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.
I find it incredible that India did not vote no on this....
Resolutions adopted by the 193-member General Assembly are not legally
binding but they do reflect world opinion and carry moral and political
weight.
Israel refuses to confirm or deny it has nuclear bombs though it is
widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal. It has refused to join the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, along with three nuclear weapon
states - India, Pakistan and North Korea.
The Arab proposal to create a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in
the Mideast, and to pressure Israel to give up its undeclared arsenal of
perhaps 80 nuclear warheads, was endorsed at an NPT conference in 1995
but never acted on. In 2010, the 189 parties to the 1970 treaty called
for convening a conference in 2012 on the establishment of a WMD-free
zone in the Middle East.
The resolution, which was approved by the assembly’s disarmament
committee before the conference was cancelled, noted the decision to
hold it “with satisfaction.”
The number I have heard is not 80 but 200. And I suppose that there is no point in arguing that Israel has allegedly had nuclear weapons for 50 years, and as the only democracy in the region has not, and is unlikely to introduce their use into the region. This isn't about logic....
While the United States voted against the resolution, it voted in favor
of two paragraphs in it that were put to separate votes. Both support
universal adherence to the NPT, and call on those countries that aren’t
parties to ratify it “at the earliest date.” The only “no” votes on
those paragraphs were Israel and India.
Aren't you glad Hussein Obama is still President? What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, IAEA, India, Iran, Israeli nuclear capability, Middle East, Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, United Nations General Assembly
'Nuke free Middle East conference postponed
A conference that was to be held next month in Finland to promote a nuclear free Middle East has been postponed indefinitely due to the lack of consensus among
parties who would need to reach agreement. The conference was
postponed by its sponsors.
"As
a co-sponsor of the proposed conference ... the United States regrets
to announce that the conference cannot be convened because of present
conditions in the Middle East and the fact that states in the region
have not reached agreement on acceptable conditions for a conference,"
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.
Nuland
said that "a deep conceptual gap persists in the region" on how to
handle regional security and arms control, adding that "outside states
cannot impose a process on the region any more than they can dictate an
outcome."
Following the US announcement that the talks would not
be taking place next month, British Foreign Office Minister Alistair
Burt said Saturday that the conference was only being postponed rather
than cancelled altogether.
"We support the convening of a
conference as soon as possible. We endorse fully the work of the
Conference Facilitator, Finnish Under-Secretary of State Jaakko Laajava,
to build consensus on next steps," he added.
The plan for a meeting to lay the groundwork for the
possible creation of a WMD-free Middle East was agreed to at a May 2010
conference of 189 parties to the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
or NPT.
The United States, feared the conference, which was to be
held in Finland, could be used as a forum to bash Israel, a concern
likely to have increased after eight days of fierce Israeli-Palestinian
fighting that ended with a ceasefire on Wednesday.
I could have told them two years ago that there would never be a nuclear free Middle East. Heck,
I did tell them two years ago that there would never be a nuclear free Middle East.
Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli nuclear capability, Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, nuclear weapons
Iran laying groundwork to abrogate NPT?
Iran may be laying the groundwork to abrogate its membership in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with accusations that
the IAEA is sharing Iran's nuclear secrets with Israel.
In the latest sign of strained relations with the International Atomic
Energy Agency, Javad Jahangirzadeh, a member of parliament's presiding
board, said IAEA chief Yukiya Amano would be to blame if Iran reduced
its ties with the body.
"Amano's repeated trips to Tel Aviv and asking the Israeli officials'
views about Iran's nuclear activities indicates that Iran's nuclear
information has been disclosed to the Zionist regime (Israel) and other
enemies of the Islamic Republic," Jahangirzadeh was quoted as saying by
Iran's English-language Press TV.
"If the agency's actions lead to
Iran cutting cooperation with this international body, all
responsibility will be with the IAEA director general," said
Jahangirzadeh, a member of parliament's national security and foreign
policy committee.
The IAEA was not immediately available to comment on his allegation.
Last week, Iranian nuclear energy chief Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani said
"terrorists" might have infiltrated the Vienna-based agency. He
suggested the IAEA included too much sensitive information about Iran's
nuclear program in its reports that he said could be used by saboteurs.
Western
diplomats dismissed his allegations as an attempt to distract attention
away from the agency's bid to gain access to a site in Iran it suspects
was used for nuclear weapons research, something Tehran denies.
Anyone want to take bets on how soon Iran withdraws?
Labels: IAEA, Iranian nuclear threat, Nuclear Proliferation Treaty
Time to replace the Dimona reactor?
In an interview with Israel National News, Haaretz military affairs correspondent Yossi Mehlman says that it's time for Israel to look into
replacing its Dimona nuclear reactor.
Melman argued, irrespective of the events in Japan, Israel should have decommissioned the reactor in Dimona long ago. "Our reactor is old, from the fifties. Germany closed reactors it built in the eighties. And here we have an older reactor. Our experts say the reactor was retrofitted, but some things are very difficult to improve in a reactor sixty years old. The core area is sealed with concrete and steel is very difficult to replace, unless you disable the reactor and remove the fuel rods."
He added that if, G-d forbid, a nuclear catastrophe happened in Israel, it would not resemble the current disaster in Japan. "Dimona is a research reactor, or according to foreign publications, a reactor to produce nuclear weapons. The Dimona reactor runs on 75 megawatts, while the reactor in Japan runs on 1000 MW. If there is damage to the reactor in Dimona the damage would be of a lesser scale. True, Dimona is close to the earthquake fault of the African Rift, but it poses less concern than an industrial power reactor in Japan."
And you can guess why so far, at least, this has not happened.
Melman noted that the most serious obstacle to Israel's upgrading the Dimona reactor is that it hasn't signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "There are countries like Israel, India and Pakistan who have not signed the treaty, that for obvious reasons do not want supervision. This makes it very difficult to get assistance from Western countries with the technology to upgrade the reactor."
Israel's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty stems from its long-term strategic policy of purposeful ambiguity vis-a-vis whether the Jewish State possesses nuclear weapons under which Israeli leaders have said, “Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the region.”
Hmmm. Something tells me that in a world that is hostile to Israel, we will not be replacing that reactor anytime soon. There is no choice.
Labels: Dimona nuclear reactor, IAEA, nuclear ambiguity, Nuclear Proliferation Treaty
Israel to build nuclear power plant?
Hmmm....
According to the report, Israel is not capable of carrying out such a project on its own — and therefore it would have to purchase a reactor as an “off-the-shelf product” from one of the prominent manufacturers in the market, such as the French company AREVA or the American company Westinghouse.
The Infrastructure Ministry and Israel Electric Corporation are already preparing to build a nuclear power plant: The Israel Atomic Energy Commission is currently conducting, together with the Infrastructure Ministry, a joint feasibility study for building nuclear reactors for producing electricity in Israel. The results of the study are due to be published at the start of 2011, and will address all the aspects related to nuclear power plants: Safety, economic profitability, new technologies in the field and geopolitical aspects.
Besides the option of building the plant as an ex-territorial entity, the possibility has arisen of building a nuclear power plant in the Indian format — in other words, without signing the NPT. India is not a signatory of the NPT, and has conducted a public nuclear test, but it enables international supervision of its civilian nuclear facilities. The Israel Atomic Energy Commission has announced that it would enable supervision of such a power plant by international agencies, and the prime minister discussed such a possibility with US President Barack Obama.
...
Yitzhak Gurvitz of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission added that “we shouldn’t be frightened of nuclear energy.” He said that one of the problems is fiscal: “We’re talking about billions of dollars to build reactors that will generate a few thousand megawatts of electricity.” The Infrastructure Ministry is now trying to solve an additional problem that Gurvitz pointed to — the fact that Israel isn’t a signatory to the NPT.
Dr. Ilan Yaar of the Negev Nuclear Research Center in Dimona suggested at the conference that Israel buy a off-the-shelf reactor “that has already been approved and is, therefore, safe.” He said that that the current problem is political, but can be solved through through an ex-territorial zone or a joint Israeli-Jordanian reactor. “The condition for both these solutions is serious progress towards a peace agreement,” said Yaar.
Another problem discussed is the unwillingness of countries to sell Israel off-the-shelf reactors. Professor Dubi offered a solution: “Israel should publish a tender, oriented towards the Russians and Chinese, for purchase of the knowledge necessary to plan and build a nuclear reactor. The the Americans will run after us — because the Russian and Chinese reactors are less safe.”
I know. Why not just build an island in the Mediterranean? Didn't Shimon Peres want to do that once upon a time? Heh.
Labels: Israel, nuclear power plant, Nuclear Proliferation Treaty
