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Israel Ready for Arms Control Talks With Egypt: Paper
Israel is prepared to discuss with Egypt the sensitive nuclear issue in a flexible move to defuse mounting pressure, Ha'aretz newspaper reported on Thursday.
During a visit to Cairo on Monday, Israeli Foreign Ministry deputy director-general Yoav Biran conveyed his country's readiness to discuss the nuclear issue to the head of Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa's office, the paper said.
A planned meeting with Moussa on Monday, however, was cancelled at the last minute, as Syrian President Hafez al-Assad arrived in Egypt on the same day.
Israel, the only country in the Middle East that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has been under great pressure at the ongoing NPT review conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York. Israel is not formally attending the conference which is held from April 24 to May 19.
Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 but to keep a "cold peace" with it thereafter, has focused attention on the Jewish state and launched a campaign at the conference to secure a special condemnation of it.
The NPT treaty "cannot have any credibility with the states of the region as long as the state (of Israel) is exempt from its provisions," Egypt argued.
A draft statement on the U.N. review of the NPT treaty has reportedly singled out Israel as the only Middle East state that has not signed the pact. Israel had wished that the conference would conclude without issuing a final declaration.
Last week, seeing a possible U.S. move to prod his country for not signing the NPT treaty, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, expressing deep concern over the issue.
The United States, the major patron of Israel in the world political arena, has been pressuring Israel to start quiet arms talks with Egypt.
Hoping to defuse the issue, Israel has decided to show flexibility, allowing arms talks to commence with Egypt while maintaining its traditional guidelines of refusing to consider disarmament before a stable peace is achieved in the Middle East.
Israel, estimated to have 200 to 300 nuclear warheads, the sixth largest nuclear arsenal in the world, has said that the current non-proliferation treaty is not the proper answer to the question in the region, which it said was proved by the cases of Iran and Iraq, its staunch foes.
In response to Israel's offer to hold talks on arms control, Egyptian officials promised to pass on the message to the highest levels of government. Moussa has also suggested that the two nations start talks on a spectrum of issues, including economic, security and diplomatic relations.
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