AlQa'dah 12, 1432, Oct 10, 2011, SPA -- Jordan's King Abdullah II on Monday voiced support for turning the Middle East into a zone free of nuclear arms during a meeting with the visiting Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano, dpa reported. The monarch told Amano that his country backed the conference which the agency planned to convene in Vienna in November to discuss the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, according to a royal court statement. King Abdullah warned that "the failure to achieve this target will hinder efforts aimed at the establishment of peace and security as well as economic development in the region". During Monday's meeting in Amman, King Abdullah expressed appreciation for the cooperation between the world watchdog and his country which he said wanted nuclear know-how for peaceful purposes. The monarch pledged that his country "will strike an example to be followed for exploiting nuclear energy in peaceful uses and in adopting the highest safety criteria in its nuclear programme". "Jordan will also deal in complete seriousness with the lessons derived from Japan's Fukushima incident and supports forcing all IAEA members to adhere to the agency's safety standards," the statement quoted King Abdullah as telling Amano. The IAEA chief praised Amman's commitment to the entirety of the agency's security standards, saying "Jordan is an effective partner in the world body in its capacity as Vice-President of the IAEA Board of Governors".
