by David Harris
JERUSALEM, May 6 (Xinhua) -- For at least 15 years the international community has been calling for a ban on nuclear weapons in the Middle East. That call gained fresh momentum on Wednesday, when all five permanent members of the UN Security Council said they want to see its implementation.
The view in Israel appears to be that the latest statement from the five is more declarative than binding, and Israel will not be forced any time soon to come clean about its nuclear arsenal.
However, Israeli leading experts in the field told Xinhua that moving towards a nuclear-free region would be for the best, but they realize it is not something that will happen overnight.
1995 AND BEYOND
"We are committed to a full implementation of the 1995 NPT resolution on the Middle East and we support all ongoing efforts to this end," the five said in a statement.
They were referring to the Middle East resolution that came into being during the 1995 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference.
Back in 1995, it was the passage of this resolution that paved the way to the broader, indefinite extension of the NPT, recalled Jacqueline Shire, a senior analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
Since then, little has been done in attempting to implement the resolution, added Martin Malin, the executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
"There has been no meaningful progress to date on the implementation of that resolution," said Malin.
Indeed if anything, since 1995 the situation in the Middle East has only intensified. Prior to that date it was widely believed that Israel has a military nuclear capability. That remains the case today. Israel maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity whereby it neither confirms nor denies the possession of a nuclear arsenal.
Elsewhere in the region though there have been developments, most notably in Iran. While the Islamic republic denies that its nuclear program is intended for military purposes, most leading Western states remain convinced that it is precisely that.
