(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Republic of Austria and the Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations and international organisations in Vienna H E Sultan bin Salmeen Al Mansouri (pictured) delivered the statements of the Arab Group before the session of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) currently being held in Vienna, on Israeli nuclear capabilities, the application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East, and nuclear and radiological safety.
Concerning Israel's nuclear capabilities, the Ambassador said that“Israel's negative practices in the nuclear field worried many countries of the world, especially the countries of the region, and were addressed by several international forums over the past decades, the last of which was the Third Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as well as decisions issued by international organisations against Israel and demanding that it join the NPT, adding that despite all these efforts, Israel still categorically refuses to implement the aforementioned decisions and deliberately underestimates the treaty and considers it ineffective in the Middle East, while its non-accession to the treaty threatens regional peace and security.”
The ambassador stressed that the Arab Group in Vienna considers that all initiatives aimed at establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East serve peace efforts, while Israel is trying to impose a new order of priorities that keeps it outside the NPT indefinitely, adding that“addressing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is at the core of the IAEA tasks and a necessary commitment to deal with the Israeli nuclear threat, which threatens not only security and stability in the Middle East but also international peace and security.”
The Ambassador conveyed the Arab Group's demand to keep the item“Israeli nuclear capabilities” in circulation within the IAEA policy-making bodies.
Regarding the establishment of a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, H E the Ambassador Sultan Al Mansouri welcomed the holding of the first session of the conference on the establishment of a zone free of lethal weapons in the Middle East in November 2019 and the UN Secretary-General's Political Declaration issued in February 2020 on the conference.
The Ambassador said that the conference is the first practical step that was achieved about 25 years after the adoption of the 1995 resolution to revive the path of establishing a zone free of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.
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