Israel is willing to share nuclear tech with Arab states it made peace with

Israel has said it is “ready” to share its nuclear technology with Arab countries that have normalised relations with it, according to Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) Director General Moshe Edri.

Edri made the comments yesterday during an address to the 66th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna and made reference to the US-brokered Abraham Accords which saw the UAE and Bahrain normalise ties with Tel Aviv, followed by Sudan and Morocco. They join Arab states Egypt and Jordan who made peace with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively.

“We are hopeful that the new spirit in our region, as demonstrated in the Abraham Accords, will mark a path forward for meaningful direct dialogue within our region, including in the nuclear fora,” he said.

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“Israel’s state-of-the-art technology provides us with significant levels of knowledge and capabilities, which we are ready to share with others, of course, under the IAEA umbrella.”

Although Israel has no nuclear plants, it operates nuclear research reactors. Its main one, the Shimon Peres Negev Research Centre based in Dimona, is widely thought to be used for the covert production of Israel’s nuclear arms, which Israel neither admits nor denies possessing.

Israel, which is non-signatory state of the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT,) opposes the on-going nuclear talks with Iran and has campaigned for the military force to be used against the country, which it suspects is developing its own nuclear arsenal, although this is denied by Tehran, which has signed the NPT.

As part of his address, Edri also warned that “Iran continues to develop, test and deploy long-range ballistic missiles, in direct violation of UN Security Council resolutions, and supports terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East.”

“Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is not an option that Israel, nor the world, can tolerate.”