Cairo calls for pressure on Tel Aviv to join the NPT

The spokesperson of Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stressed the need to achieve internationalisation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has demanded that Israel join the treaty as a nuclear-free state and that it subject all its nuclear facilities to the Comprehensive Safeguards System of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In his statement, the spokesperson, Hossam Zaki, commented on an IAEA report on Israel’s nuclear capabilities. The report that was written by the UN nuclear watchdog’s chief Yukiya Amano, who visited Israel at the end of August, is due to be discussed by the IAEA Board of Governors and General Conference.

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In a press statement obtained by Quds Press, Zaki said that any discussions about dealing with nuclear threats in the Middle East with reference to Iran would be meaningless if not accompanied by an effort to subject all nuclear facilities in the region, including in Israel, to the IAEA Comprehensive Safeguard System.

He warned that Israel’s continued refusal to join the NPT as a nuclear-free state, and the absence of any kind of international monitoring over its nuclear facilities, constitutes a central threat to the Middle East’s non-proliferation system.

He also stressed the need for the IAEA to assume its role in compelling Israel to join the NPT and open up its nuclear facilities to the nuclear watchdog in compliance with resolution ratified by the IAEA chief last year regarding Israel’s nuclear capabilities, as well as other related international resolutions.