(Reuters) –
Israel has no plan to review its nuclear policies, a government official
said on Friday, playing down efforts by world powers at a U.N.
non-proliferation conference to promote a Middle East free of atomic
arms.
Hoping to win Arab backing for sanctions
against Iran, the United States and other permanent U.N. Security
Council members on Wednesday called for ways to be found to implement a
1995 initiative that would guarantee nuclear disarmament in a region
where Israel is widely assumed to have the only such weapons.
The declaration followed campaigning by
Egypt to focus attention, during this month’s nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) conference, on non-signatory Israel, which has set peace
with all its neighbors as a precondition for joining the pact.
“There is nothing new here, and no reason
for a change of direction on our part,” a senior Israeli official told
Reuters.
Egypt, which heads a
powerful bloc of non-aligned developing nations, has circulated a
proposal to the NPT’s 189 signato… >>>
