‘Israel’ Maintains “Nuke Ambiguity Policy” as US Shies Away and Mottaki: Obama’s New Nuclear Policy a “Propaganda”

{Obama holding "Iran" sign} by Yazid 'Alya

‘Israel’ Maintains “Nuke Ambiguity Policy” as US Shies Away from Crisis

Al Manar

07/04/2010 Israel plans to maintain its policy of ambiguity, with US backing, over its nuclear policy, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said on Wednesday. “This policy of ambiguity constitutes one of the pillars of Israeli national security and the Americans consider it very important,” Ayalon told army radio. “There is no reason for the Americans to change their approach or for Israel to change its position,” he said.

Foreign military experts believe Israel has an arsenal of 200 nuclear bombs. Ayalon’s comments came ahead of next week’s nuclear security summit in Washington.

US President Barack Obama declared Tuesday that Iran and North Korea will become “more isolated,” in announcing a new policy that restricts America’s use of nuclear weapons except in the event that those states “violate” their international obligations.

Under the Nuclear Posture Review, released Tuesday, the US pledged not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and “in compliance” with their NPT obligations, Obama said.

“Those nations that fail to meet their obligations will therefore find themselves more isolated, and will recognize that the pursuit of nuclear weapons will not make them more secure,” he stressed.

Analyzing the US new nuclear policy, Bar-Ilan Political Science Prof. Gerald Steinberg said Obama will not start a new crisis with Israel over its nuclear capability. He said that the United States already “has enough complications” with Israel over the issue of building settlements in all of occupied Jerusalem and is not looking for additional problems.

The possibility of American pressure on Israel to sign a nuclear non-proliferation treaty could be raised next week, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu meets Obama at a nuclear summit. Israel’s official policy is “nuclear ambiguity,” meaning it “does not acknowledge possessing nuclear weapons”. Signing a non-proliferation treaty would counter that policy.

“Israel has understandings with the United States, and even Europe, that it is an exception and that Asian countries are much more of a worry,” he explained to Voice of Israel radio.

Prof. Steinberg, who also directs the NGO Monitor watchdog organization, declared that Obama’s latest attempts to place sanctions against Iran are too late to stop the Islamic Republic from attaining “nuclear capability.”

“North Korea already has nuclear capability, and Iran is moving in that direction,” he said. The fact is that the timetable for sanctions is a year old, and things are only just beginning to move. It really is too late. Until now, there have been only good intentions.

This policy confirms what The Washington Post had unveiled in which it said in a report that Obama met Netanyahu at the White House in Washington DC in May and confirmed to him that the US would maintain the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Avner Cohen, an Israeli expert and author, was quoted by the paper as saying that under the deal “the United States passively [accepts] Israel’s nuclear weapons status as long as Israel does not unveil publicly its capability or test a weapon”. There is no official accounting of the deal, supposedly agreed in 1969 between Richard Nixon, then US president, and Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister at the time.

Mottaki: Obama’s New Nuclear Policy a “Propaganda”

Al Manar

07/04/2010 Iran on Wednesday dismissed US President Barack Obama’s new nuclear policy as “propaganda” and called on Washington to make good its promises to rid the world of “atomic weapons”. “We regard the recent position and comments of the United States as propaganda,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said at a press conference when asked to react to Obama’s new nuclear policy unveiled on Tuesday.

“We urge the US to make good on nuclear disarmament in the entire world and we denounce the US for being the first user of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima.” Mottaki reiterated that Iran does not believe in nor does it need nuclear weapons.

The United States unveiled new limits on the nation’s nuclear arsenal Tuesday, saying it would only use atomic weapons in “extreme circumstances” and would not attack non-nuclear states. In a policy shift, the United States said for the first time that countries without atomic weapons that complied with non-proliferation treaty obligations need not fear a US nuclear attack. But Obama warned exceptions could be made for “outliers” such as Iran and North Korea, both accused by the West of flouting UN resolutions.

Mottaki said that Iran was still hopeful that a UN-drafted deal to supply nuclear fuel to a Tehran reactor could be finalized. “The fuel exchange proposal is still on the table and we can carry it out,” Mottaki told reporters. “We have had direct and indirect talks with all the sides of the Vienna group and discussed different aspects of a logical framework for an exchange (of fuel).”

Mottaki said the deal can still be done “in a little while if they show some political will.” The International Atomic Energy Agency brokered a deal in Vienna last October which envisages Iran sending its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to France and Russia for conversion into fuel for its Tehran research reactor.

But Iranian officials have refused to hand over Tehran’s stockpiles of LEU, insisting on a simultaneous exchange of the material for the fuel within the borders of the Islamic republic. World powers have opposed this condition.