New York, SANA – Syria’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari said that the West has supplied Israel with nuclear technology and worked to exclude it from international oversight by turning a blind eye to its possession of nuclear weapons.
In a statement during a UN General Assembly session on Friday on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, al-Jaafari said that the development of nuclear arsenals is one of the challenges facing the world today, which includes the Israeli nuclear arsenal which disregards non-proliferation international conventions.
He asserted that nuclear non-proliferation is a national priority for Syria, which joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1968 before several EU countries that today claim to care about non-proliferation, adding that some of these countries along with Turkey which is a NATO member possess nuclear weapon in clear disregard for the aforementioned treaty.
Al-Jaafari said that in 2003, Syria submitted to the Security Council a proposal for making the Middle East clear of nuclear weapons and all other WMDs, but it was obstructed by the American delegation at the time which threatened to veto it, and these erroneous policies show that the West’s allegations of its commitment to making the Middle East free of nuclear weapons and WMDs to be false.
He pointed out that the West is responsible for supplying Israel with nuclear materials and technology that enabled it to possess nuclear weapons, including German submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles that were given to Israel for free.
Al-Jaafari said that the West tried desperately but in vain to exclude Israeli nuclear weapons from the conference on reviewing the non-proliferation treaty in 2010, in addition to foiling the conferences in 2012 and 2015, all to make the world turn a blind eye to Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons.
He noted that the Security Council and the IAEA did not denounce Israel’s blatant military attack on Syria in 2007, adding that Israel refused to cooperate with the IAEA in investigating the possible contamination caused by the Israeli rockets and the materials used to destroy the site it targeted back then in Deir Ezzor.
Syria’s Representative said that Israel’s lack of cooperation with the IAEA provisos, its continuing development of its military nuclear capability without any international oversight, and its disregard for demands to make the Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction undermine the integrity of the non-proliferation treaty and pose a threat to the security and stability of the Middle East.
Hazem Sabbagh