"Middle East nations need to begin a serious strategic dialogue on nuclear issues, aimed at building up an environment of mutual confidence and making [Mideast] a region free of weapons of mass destruction and conventional arms race," ElBaradei said in a Sunday interview with Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram.
According to the head of the world nuclear watchdog, it is up to each country to decide whether to join the Nuclear Weapons Nonproliferation Treaty. By signing it, a state commits itself to no usage of nuclear technologies for military purposes, he said.
ElBaradei recalled that there were many more relevant international arrangements around - for example, nuclear security agreements, power plant radiation escape warnings, and nuclear disasters management assistance agreements. He emphasized that Israel was also party to these documents.
According to ElBaradei, IAEA has no legal right to inspect nuclear sites and verify their safety in a country that has not signed a relevant treaty.
Tehran has recently signed the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Weapons Nonproliferation Treaty (unlike Israel, Iran had originally signed the Treaty as far back as in 1970, nine years before the Islamic Revolution), thus giving IAEA a right to inspect nuclear sites in Iran without prior notification. Save Iraq, Israel and Iran are the only two Mideast countries apparently having nuclear ambitions. The former almost positively has relatively successful nuclear programs, while Iran officially denies having such ambitions, insists on peaceful purpose of its nuclear research and argues that a nuclear power plant it is constructing together with Russia in the town of Bushehr is about the country's sovereign right to produce energy.
Russia is cooperating with Iran on the Bushehr light water reactor, which is almost complete, and will provide nuclear fuel for the power plant. Although the Nuclear Weapons Nonproliferation Treaty does provide for transfer of peaceful nuclear technology to non-nuclear countries, especially if the latter are treaty signatories, the U.S. has strongly opposed to Russian-Iranian nuclear cooperation. According to the U.S., Iran is a major oil exporter and therefore does not need nuclear reactors to produce power. The U.S. suspects that the Russian-Iranian nuclear projects cover transfer of sensitive nuclear technology and training of Iranian nuclear weapons experts, which could bring Iran closer to the possession of WMD.
Nonetheless, Russia says positively that the project would be completed. Moscow and Tehran have already settled the return of nuclear fuel waste to Russia; an agreement to that effect is being prepared.
