Arab states pledged Thursday to step up pressure on Israel to join a global anti-nuclear arms pact, defying US warnings their action could harm Mideast peace talks. Signalling they were in no mood to compromise, Arab member nations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also sharply criticized a report by its head on Israeli Nuclear Capabilities, saying it was “weak” and “devoid of substance”. The United States and its Western allies urged the group to withdraw a planned resolution at the IAEA's annual assembly next week calling on Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and put all of its atomic sites under the UN body's watch. Israel's envoy to the IAEA said the Arab push was politically motivated and it was a “sovereign right” to decide whether or not to accede to the treaty, diplomats at a closed-door meeting of the agency's board said. Arab states won narrow backing for a similar resolution at the 2009 general conference of the 151-nation IAEA, but the United States has lobbied hard to avoid a repeat this year. The US envoy to the IAEA said the non-binding resolution targeting Israel would undermine broader efforts in 2012 towards establishing a region free of weapons of mass destruction, and could also upset Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. But Arab states, addressing the board meeting, did not back down, urging IAEA member states to support the resolution. The Arab statement said Amano's report was “weak and disappointing, devoid of any substance and not up to the typical level of the Agency's reporting,” in unusually blunt comments. It added: “The report neither contained an assessment (of) the Israeli nuclear capabilities, nor did the Agency try to obtain any information about these capabilities, especially concerning a military dimension.”
