|
 | Wednesday, April 26, 2000, updated at 14:11(GMT+8) | ||||||||||||
|
World | ||||||||||||
|
Egypt Urges Israel to Accede to NPT Without Further DelayThe Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) cannot have any credibility with the states in the Middle East as long as Israel is exempt from its provisions, Egypt said Tuesday.Addressing the general debate of the 2000 NPT Review Conference which is held from April 24 to May 19, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, permanent representative of Egypt to the United Nations, said that over the last five year, Egypt had put forward many proposals on steps to be taken by Israel and the states of the region with a view to achieving practical progress toward ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Among the steps were the initiation of regional negotiations on the tenets of the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, the declaration by the states of the region of their commitment to adhere to the international instruments on the non-proliferation or prohibition of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons within a specified timeframe and the adoption by Israel and the states of the region of confidence building measures in the nuclear field, the ambassador said. "We put forward these and other ideas in the hope of initiating a positive dialogue that would contribute to breaking the current impasse and reaffirming the obligation of the Israeli side to take practical steps for the negotiation on rendering the region free from nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction," said the ambassador. "Unfortunately, Israel did not respond to any of these endeavors," the ambassador noted. The NPT's credibility with the states of the region can only be achieved by Israel accepting the commitments which its neighbors in the region had already accepted in the field of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, the ambassador stressed. The ambassador urged the 2000 NPT Review Conference to consider the following: -- The uniqueness of the situation in the Middle East region as acknowledged by the 1995 review conference; -- The message of the 2000 NPT Review Conference must be unequivocal in its demand that Israel accede to the Treaty without further delay and that it place all its nuclear facilities under the safeguards regime of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency); -- The need to achieve the universality of the NPT at the regional and international levels alike is of essence; -- The responsibility of the Nuclear States and in particular the States depositories of the Treaty that have cosponsored the Resolution on the Middle East in 1995 for its implementation and the realization of all of its objectives in full; -- The need for a mechanism to monitor and follow up the progress made in the implementation of the 1995 Middle East Resolution. Opened for signature in 1968, the NPT entered into force in 1970. By January 2000, a total of 187 parties had joined the Treaty. Four states have chosen to remain outside the Treaty: Cuba, India, Pakistan and Israel.
 In This Section 
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright by People's Daily Online, all right reserved | | Mirror in U.S. | Mirror in Japan | Mirror in Edu-Net | Mirror in Tech-Net | |
