Fine Print/ IAEA demands that Israel open nuclear facility to inspection/ 09/ 21/ 2009

Fine Print/ IAEA demands that Israel open nuclear facility to inspection/ 09/ 21/ 2009:

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IAEA demands that Israel open nuclear facility to inspection
Source: IMEMC
Date: Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:59

The International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution Thursday calling on the state of Israel to open its nuclear facility in Dimona to international inspection, and to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is the first time in 18 years that such a resolution has managed to pass the IAEA General Assembly, as it has been blocked in previous years by Israel and the US.

Although Israel's nuclear program was exposed in the early 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu (who was jailed for two decades and remains under house arrest in Israel), the Israeli government has taken pains to avoid admitting publicly that it has nuclear weapons.

The resolution, passed by a majority 49 nations, called for the inspection of "Israeli nuclear capabilities". 45 nations, including the European Union countries and the United States, voted against the resolution.

Another resolution passed at the Assembly called for a "nuclear-free Middle East", and called for negotiations by the countries in the Middle East to achieve that end.

The Israeli representative (who is also deputy chief of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission), David Danieli, discounted the importance of this resolution, saying that Iran, Syria, Libya and Iraq had previously disregarded the Non-Proliferation Treaty that they had signed. Danieli offered no evidence to back his claim that any of those four countries had developed nuclear capabilities -- a claim that goes against the IAEA's own findings.



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