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Resolution on Israel Fails at IAEA
For the second year in a row, a resolution critical of Israel’s nuclear program failed to pass the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last month.
IAEA member states voted 58-45 against the resolution on Sept. 25.
The nonbinding resolution, referred to as “Israeli Nuclear Capabilities” and sponsored by a group of 17 Arab states, called on Israel to put its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards and join the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear-weapon state.
In 2009 a similar resolution passed the IAEA conference for the first time after being voted down for years. An attempt the next year failed. The Arab states did not put the measure on the agenda in 2011 and 2012, saying they hoped that Israel would be more likely to attend a regional meeting on establishing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East if it did not feel singled out for condemnation in the region.
The Arab states revived the measure in 2013 after the meeting on the WMD-free zone did not take place as planned in December 2012.
A commitment to hold the meeting by the end of 2012 was a critical piece of the consensus on the final document of the 2010 NPT Review Conference. A meeting subsequently was scheduled for December 2012 in Helsinki, but was postponed when it became clear that not all of the countries in the region were willing to attend the conference. (See ACT, December 2012.)
Israel does not publicly admit to possessing nuclear weapons, but is widely believed to have an arsenal of approximately 80 to 100 warheads. Israel is an IAEA member and has placed some of its nuclear facilities under agency safeguards.
Thomas Countryman, U.S. assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, said in a Sept. 25 statement that the United States “regret[ted]” that the resolution was introduced.
He said discussion of the resolution diverted IAEA member states from the “shared priority of strengthening the IAEA, and has diverted the regional states from the critical task of engaging with each other.”