Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) jointly addresses journalists with Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, in Jerusalem, on Oct. 13, 2014. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 13 2015 (IPS)

As the Iranian nuclear talks hurtle towards a Mar. 24 deadline, there is renewed debate among activists about the blatant Western double standards underlying the politically-heated issue, and more importantly, the resurrection of a longstanding proposal for a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Asked about the Israeli obsession to prevent neighbours – first and foremost Iran, but also Saudi Arabia and Egypt – from going nuclear, Hillel Schenker, co-editor of the Jerusalem-based Palestine-Israel Journal, told IPS, “This is primarily the work of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has built his political career on fanning the flames of fear, and saying that Israel has to stand pat, with a strong leader [him] to withstand the challenges.”"If Israel lost its regional monopoly on nuclear weapons, it would be vulnerable. So the U.S. goes all out to block nuclear weapons - except for Israel." -- Bob Rigg

And this is the primary motivation for his upcoming and very controversial partisan speech before the U.S. Congress on the eve of the Israeli elections, which has aroused a tremendous amount of opposition in Israel, in the American Jewish community and in the U.S. in general, he pointed out.

Iran, which has consistently denied any plans to acquire nuclear weapons, will continue its final round of talks involving Germany and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia (collectively known as P-5, plus one).

Last week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani asked the United States and Israel, both armed with nuclear weapons, a rhetorical question tinged with sarcasm: “Have you managed to bring about security for yourselves with your atomic bombs?”

The New York Times quoted the Washington-based Arms Control Association as saying Israel is believed to have 100 to 200 nuclear warheads.

The Israelis, as a longstanding policy, have neither confirmed nor denied the nuclear arsenal. But both the United States and Israel have been dragging their feet over the proposal for a nuclear-free Middle East.

Bob Rigg, a former senior editor with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), told IPS the U.S. government conveniently ignores its own successive National Intelligence Estimates, which represent the consensus views of all 13 or so U.S. intelligence agencies, that there has been no evidence, in the period since 2004, of any Iranian intention to acquire nuclear weapons.

“If Israel is the only nuclear possessor in the Middle East, this combined with the U.S nuclear and conventional capability, gives the U.S. and Israel an enormously powerful strategic lever in the region,” Rigg said.

He said this is even more realistic, especially now that Syria’s chemical weapons (CW) have been destroyed. They were the only real threat to Israel in the region.

“This dimension of the destruction of Syria’s CW has gone strangely unnoticed. Syria had Russian-made missiles that could have targeted population centres right throughout Israel,” said Rigg, a former chair of the New Zealand Consultative Committee on Disarmament.

A question being asked by military analysts is: why is Israel, armed with both nuclear weapons and also some of the most sophisticated conventional arms from the United States, fearful of any neighbour with WMDs?

Will a possibly nuclear-armed Iran, or for that matter Saudi Arabia or Egypt, risk using nuclear weapons against Israel since it would also exterminate the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories? ask nuclear activists.

Schenker told IPS: “I believe that if Iran were to opt for nuclear weapons, the primary motivation would be to defend the regime, not to attack Israel. Still, it is preferable that they not gain nuclear weapons.”

Of course, he said, the fundamental solution to this danger would be the creation of a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East.

That will require a two-track parallel process: One track moving towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the other track moving towards the creation of a regional regime of peace and security, with the aid of the Arab Peace Initiative (API), within which a WMD Free Zone would be a major component, said Schenker, a strong advocate of nuclear disarmament.

As for the international conference on a nuclear and WMD free zone before the next NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference, scheduled to begin at the end of April in New York, he said, the proposal is still alive.

In mid-March, the Academic Peace Orchestra Middle East initiative will convene a conference in Berlin, whose theme is “Fulfilling the Mandate of the Helsinki Conference in View of the 2015 NPT Review Conference”.

It will include a session on the topic featuring Finnish Ambassador Jaakko Laajava, the facilitator of the conference, together with governmental representatives from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Germany.

There will also be an Iranian participant at the conference, said Schenker.

Rigg told IPS Israel’s first Prime Minister Ben Gurion wanted nuclear weapons from the outset. Israel was approved by the new United Nations, which then had only 55 or so members. Most of the developing world was still recovering from World War II and many new states had yet to emerge.

He said the United States and the Western powers played the key role in setting up the U.N.

“They wanted an Israel, even though Israeli terrorists murdered Count Folke Berdadotte of Sweden, the U.N. representative who was suspected of being favourable to the Palestinians,” Rigg said.

The Palestinians were consulted, and said no, but were ignored, he said. Only two Arab states were then U.N. members. They were also ignored. Most of today’s Muslim states either did not exist or were also ignored.

“When the U.N. approved Israel, Arab states attacked, but were beaten off. They did not want an Israel to be transplanted into their midst. They still don’t. Nothing has changed. ”

Given the unrelenting hostility of the Arab states to the Western creation of Israel, he said, Israel developed nuclear weapons to give itself a greater sense of security.

“If Israel lost its regional monopoly on nuclear weapons, it would be vulnerable. So the U.S. goes all out to block nuclear weapons – except for Israel,” he added.

Not even Israel argues that Iran has nuclear weapons now.

“A NW free zone in the Middle East is simply a joke. If Israel joined the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it would have to declare and destroy its nuclear arsenal.”

The U.S. finds excuses to avoid prodding Israel into joining the NPT. The U.S. is effectively for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, but successive U.S. presidents have refused to publicly say that Israel has nuclear weapons, he added.

Because of all this, a NWF zone in the ME is not a real possibility, even if U.S. President Barack Obama and Netanyahu are at each other’s throats, said Rigg.

Schenker said Netanyahu’s comments come at a time when the 22-member League of Arab States, backed by the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have, since 2002, presented Israel an Arab Peace Initiative (API).

The API offers peace and normal relations in exchange for the end of the occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and an agreed upon solution to the refugee problem.

This doesn’t mean that the danger of nuclear proliferation isn’t a problem in the Middle East, said Schenker.

“As long as Israel has retained a monopoly on nuclear weapons, and promised to use them only as a last resort, everyone seemed to live with the situation. ”

The challenge of a potential Iranian nuclear weapons programme would break that status quo, and create the danger of a regional nuclear arms race, he noted. Unfortunately, the global community is very occupied with the challenge of other crises right now, such as Ukraine and the Islamic State.

“So it is to be hoped the necessary political attention will also be focused on the challenges connected to the upcoming NPT Review conference, and the need to make progress on the Middle Eastern WMD Free Zone track as well,” he declared.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Feb 21 2012 (IPS)

Latin America and the Caribbean celebrated their 45th anniversary as a nuclear-weapon-free zone amidst allegations of British deployment of nuclear weapons to the South Atlantic and with no specific regime for the transport of radioactive waste. 

The transport of radioactive material is of concern to Central America and the Caribbean, says Gioconda Ubeda. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Earlier this month, the Argentine government accused the United Kingdom of deploying a nuclear-powered submarine armed with nuclear warheads to the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, an archipelago in the southern Atlantic Ocean that has been the subject of a sovereignty dispute between the two countries since the 19th century.

Argentina stressed that such a move would violate the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, better known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco, whose Additional Protocol II was signed and ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, the world’s five nuclear powers when the treaty was adopted in 1967.

Under this additional protocol, the nuclear powers pledged “not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons” against the countries of the region.

But the transport through the region of nuclear weapons and radioactive waste was not contemplated in the treaty, the first of its kind, which was signed by the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean on Feb. 14, 1967 in Tlatelolco, Mexico and entered into force in April 1969.

The transport of weapons “is one of the major challenges that needs to be addressed in the region,” says Costa Rican Gioconda Ubeda, secretary general of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), the intergovernmental body that enforces the Treaty of Tlatelolco.

The transport of radioactive material is also an issue of concern for Central America and the Caribbean, but there are differing stances among the parties to the treaty as to whether or not this issue should be included on the OPANAL agenda, she added.

Ubeda, the OPANAL secretary general for the 2010-2014 period, spoke with Tierramérica during the activities held in the Mexican capital to mark the 45th anniversary of the world’s first nuclear-weapon-free zone.

These zones “were created as dikes, as islands, to shield these territories which, through political will, should evolve to become a driving force towards the ultimate goal of completely eliminating nuclear weapons,” said Ubeda.

Q: How should the transport of nuclear weapons and radioactive waste in the region be addressed?

A: The transport of nuclear weapons was left out of the treaty. There were lengthy discussions that are well documented in the minutes, but no agreement was reached. This is one of the major challenges that the region needs to address.

Each individual state is responsible for the application of international law, as well as maritime control in their own territorial waters. It is not that the conditions do not exist to address it, but I see it more within the sphere of each state.

In terms of radioactive waste, it is not contemplated in the treaty, but there are binding international legal instruments that deal with the issue, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is a subject related to the environment, which has another sphere of implementation.

In the meantime, there is valid concern in the Caribbean and Central America over the transport of this waste through the region and the eventuality of an accident. This is an issue that needs attention. But it is not on the OPANAL agenda, and there are conflicting stances among the states parties as to whether or not it should be included.

Q: What does it imply for the region that the United States has a nuclear arsenal?

A: We do not agree with nuclear-weapon-free zones being used as a security mechanism for the application of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, which emerged during the Cold War.

This is a situation we have become accustomed to. Latin America’s response was to say to the major powers, “We have decided to be a nuclear-weapon-free zone and we ask you to respect this and assume a commitment through the additional protocols not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons or establish missiles in the region.”

This was achieved, yet not only the United States, but rather any country that has nuclear weapons always signifies a risk, because the threat is not only for a particular region.

This spirit of Tlatelolco clearly reflected this concern. The zones were created as a means to pursue the goal of freeing the world of nuclear weapons. And so we continue to be concerned no matter where those weapons are.

Q: How have the nuclear-weapon-free zones evolved?

A: Our view is that they were created as dikes, as islands, to shield these territories which, through political will, should evolve to become a driving force towards the ultimate goal of completely eliminating nuclear weapons

Now it is a matter of building bridges between the dikes and supporting the construction of new zones, like one in the Middle East, which has been under discussion since 1995, although the first real progress was only made last year.

It is our responsibility to share our experience, because we continue working to preserve the nuclear-weapon-free zone, and our agenda includes working towards the universal goal of freeing the word of this threat.

Q: What can be done to unblock the international process of non-proliferation and disarmament?

A: If I had the answer to that question, I think I would be named to one of the high leadership positions in the United Nations. This is a question that needs to be addressed by negotiating effective measures that lead us towards vertical non-proliferation (preventing the expansion of existing national nuclear arsenals) and horizontal non-proliferation (preventing the expansion of the number of countries with nuclear arsenals) and the commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Some agreements have been reached, and now it is a matter of ensuring their implementation, for example, for countries with arsenals that are no longer useful to withdraw them from circulation.

It is also important for firmer steps to be taken towards disarmament. This is an issue in which the nuclear powers play the most important role.

There is also a need to try to strengthen the regime of non-proliferation. The nuclear-weapon-free zones contribute through non-proliferation within these territories, but we need to advance much further, because we cannot see non-proliferation without measures that lead to total disarmament.

*The writer is an IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

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