U.S. presses Israel on nuclear-free zone deal
A top U.S. official has been sent to Israel to try to revive talks on a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons, a central issue of a review conference that some fear will end Friday without progress on global disarmament.
The U.S. State Department confirmed that the assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation was in Israel to discuss the issue. An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to comment on Thomas Countryman’s visit, saying it was a “very sensitive” matter.
Establishing a zone free of nuclear weapons in one of the world’s most tense regions is a rare point of agreement between the United States and Russia. Russia has proposed that UN-led talks be held no later than March 2016.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry this month called the proposed zone an “ambitious goal and fraught with challenges” but worth pursuing.
The pressure comes as the president of the nuclear treaty review conference, Taous Feroukhi of Algeria, on Wednesday pleaded with countries to close the “still wide” gaps on major issues under disarmament and non-proliferation.
“I have nothing substantive to share with you. This is the problem,” she said. “Please, I need your help.”
The review conference for the landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is held every five years, and a failure to agree on a way forward would highlight the growing frustration of countries without nuclear weapons to get the nucleararmed ones to take concrete steps to disarm. The U.S. and Russia hold more than 90 per cent of the estimated 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world.
Israel is not a party to the treaty but showed up this year as a surprise observer.
Israel did not say why the talks were discontinued but noted that the consultations were “the first direct engagement between Israel and its neighbours on this issue in over 20 years.”
Iran, a party to the treaty and engaged in talks with world powers on its own nuclear program, this month spoke on behalf of more than 100 mostly developing countries in calling for Israel to give up its nuclear weapons, calling them a regional threat.
Israel has never publicly declared what is widely considered to be an extensive nuclear weapons program.