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07/04/2004:

"ElBaradei Wants Israel to Discuss Scrapping Nukes"

Reuters

VIENNA (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, goes to Israel on Tuesday to try to persuade the Jewish state to open up its nuclear program, but officials said Israel was not ready to scrap its atomic arsenal.

Under its policy of ``strategic ambiguity,'' Israel neither admits nor denies having nuclear weapons. But it is assumed to have up to 200 warheads, based on estimates of the amount of plutonium Israeli reactors have produced.

While no breakthroughs are expected, one Western diplomat close to the IAEA said ElBaradei would meet senior Israeli officials, possibly including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said it would be partly a ``routine visit,'' but added that ElBaradei intended ``to promote the concept of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East'' -- clearly the central point of his talks.

Israel welcomes the idea of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction but says disarmament has to come after peace has been achieved in the region, which has been plagued by violence and conflict for decades.

``We need ... to rid the Middle East of all weapons of mass destruction,'' ElBaradei said recently. ``Israel agrees with that, but they say it has to be after peace agreements. My proposal is maybe we need to start to have a parallel dialogue on security at the same time when we're working on the peace process.''

A diplomat close to the IAEA went even further: ``No Middle East peace process can work until we deal with the issue of weapons of mass destruction.''

Until recently, diplomats in Vienna said ElBaradei might try to persuade Israel to acknowledge it has nuclear weapons as a first step toward disarmament. But Israeli officials and diplomats in Vienna now say this will not happen.full article

How coy. 'Strategic ambiguity.' Well this has got to be the worst-kept secret in the world. Also notice that mild remark: "the region, which has been plagued by violence and conflict for decades.."as if some baffling impersonal force descended onto the Middle East and made it a violent place, or perhaps it is a flaw in the make-up of those Arabs...It will be a great day when a sentence like that ends: "...due to European imperialism." Oh well. I won't hold my breath.