WarSclerotic

Syria accused Israel on Wednesday of posing a threat to the world with its “huge military nuclear arsenal”, a day after Israel criticized Damascus for stonewalling a UN watchdog investigation into its atomic activities.

The exchange between the two adversaries, at an annual member state meeting of the UN nuclear agency, underlined deep divisions between Arab states and Israel ahead of rare talks later this year on efforts to rid the world of atomic bombs.

	The nuclear power plant in Dimona.
	Photo by: Archive

Israel is widely believed to hold the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, drawing frequent Arab and Iranian condemnation.

Israel and the United States see Iran — and to a lesser extent Syria — as the Middle East’s main proliferation threats, accusing Tehran of seeking to develop a nuclear arms capability in secret.

Arab nations have dropped plans to single out Israel over its presumed nuclear weapons at this week’s gathering of International Atomic Energy Agency members, calling this a goodwill gesture in the run-up to the Nov. 21-22 discussions.

But the Syrian and Israeli statements this week highlighted a high level of mistrust ahead of the meeting, hosted by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, to debate the experience of regions elsewhere in the world that have banned nuclear arms.

Relations between the two are especially fraught in the nuclear arena. Israel bombed a Syrian desert site in 2007 which U.S. intelligence said was a nascent reactor intended to produce plutonium for nuclear weaponry. Syria denies this.

“In the Middle East there is a unique feature: Israel is the only country which has a military and nuclear arsenal, outside the realm of any international control,” Syrian Ambassador Bassam Al-Sabbagh told the IAEA’s annual General Conference.

For the November talks to be successful, “all participants should be parties to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and the agenda of such a meeting should focus on the issue of creating a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East”.

Arab states, Israel and other countries are expected to attend the talks, which are regarded s a way to kick-start a dialogue and help generate some badly needed confidence.

Big power divisions

Addressing the IAEA conference on Tuesday, the head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission lashed out at Syria for still refusing UN nuclear inspectors access to all its atomic sites.

Naming also Iran, Shaul Chorev said: “Regimes that brutally repress their own citizens … have no hesitation when it comes to non-compliance with their legally binding obligations under international law.

“The international community has failed to convey a decisive message to such rulers. (They) still consider non-compliance as a low risk. The international community should prove them wrong. Violators should be punished,” said Chorev.

Israel has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons under a policy of ambiguity to deter numerically superior foes. It is the only country in the Middle East outside the NPT.

Arab states, backed by Iran, say Israel’s stance poses a threat to regional peace and stability. They want Israel to subject all its nuclear facilities to IAEA monitoring.

Israel says it would only join the pact if there is a comprehensive Middle East peace with its longtime Arab and Iranian adversaries. If it signed the 1970 NPT pact, Israel would have to renounce nuclear weaponry.

In a U.S.-led move, the IAEA’s 35-nation board voted in June to report Syria to the UN Security Council over its refusal to allow agency inspectors to visit the Dair Alzour site. Russia and China opposed the move, betraying big power splits.

Syria has since offered to cooperate on the issue of Dair Alzour and Sabbagh said a meeting with the UN agency had been set for October. Western diplomats have expressed caution about previous such overtures from Damascus.

Al-Sabbagh said Israel’s attack on Dair Alzour had violated international law. “As a consequence of this heinous aggression the military building, which did not have any relation with nuclear activities, was destroyed,” he said.

The IAEA assessed in a recent nuclear safeguards report on Syria that the site was “very likely” to have been a nuclear reactor under construction, before it was leveled.

Syrian troops have amassed in several areas across the country that have been at the centre of the uprising against the government of President Bashar Assad, Beirut-based
Syrian activists said Thursday.

The activists said troops were deployed to the central cities of Hama and Homs, as well as the southern province of Daraa, flashpoints in the security crackdown on protesters in recent months.

	Syrian protesting against President Bashar Assad in the city of Homs, September 16, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

“They are preparing for a wide-scale operation in these cities again,” one activist who requested anonymity told the German Press Agency DPA in Beirut.

The activist said security forces were targeting and attacking the families of activists and sympathizers of the protesters who first took to the streets in mid-March.

“The Syrian security forces and their dogs, the intelligence, are not sparing anyone in Syria, if they look for an activist and they cannot find him in the country they go to his family, attack or arrest them, just to put pressure on us,” he said.

According to a statement released by the Syrian Human Rights Committee, the parents of internationally-known pianist Malek Jandali were attacked in their home by pro-government militiamen. The 39-year-old German-born musician who grew up in Homs has often expressed support for the protesters.

The committee said in its statement that it held al-Assad’s government responsible for the attack and called for an end to “barbaric and unjustified acts.”

State television meanwhile reported the arrest of members “of an armed terrorist group” at a farm in Daraa, saying security forces had “confiscated a big quantity of explosives and remote-control bombs.”

According to the report, “the goal of the terrorist group was to plant the explosives in crowded civilian areas to kill a large number of citizens.”

Security forces have killed some 2,700 people, including at least 100 children since the anti-government protests began in mid-March, according to the United Nations.

“Of course we understand that Iran aims to acquire nuclear weapons and we are concerned about this,” said Prof. Yin Gang. “While it declares that its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes, the Chinese government and intelligence services believe that Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb.” This clear statement was made by an independent Chinese expert on the Middle East who recently visited Israel at the invitation of Signal, an organization that furthers academic ties between Israel and China.

Gang, who was here to participate in a symposium at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, is a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He defines himself as an independent scholar who is not affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party or the government, and his knowledge of Iran also stems from visits there. His insights offer a glimpse into Chinese foreign policy and its apparent contradictions, which Israel sometimes has difficulty understanding.

	Professor Ying Gang.

Like Russia, China has refused to join the United States and other Western countries in imposing new, tighter sanctions on Iran in response to the latter’s refusal to obey UN Security Council resolutions demanding that it cease uranium enrichment. But on the other hand, China did vote for weaker sanctions against the ayatollahs’ regime. China purchases oil from Iran, but has refused to build nuclear reactors there or sell it equipment for its nuclear program.

Nevertheless, Ying views China’s policy on the Middle East in general, and Iran in particular, as clear and consistent. “It is a policy based on our philosophy of refraining from taking sides in conflicts,” he said. “We try to remain neutral in the Middle East conflict. In the past, during the Cold War, we sided with the Arabs against Israel. But this has changed. Today we see ourselves as friends of Israel, and at the same time we attempt to maintain friendly relations with all countries. We are friends of Israel and the Turks and the Iranians and the Arabs.”

In his estimation, “China cannot do much to influence developments in the region. We do not export revolution and we do not support democratic movements. We need oil for our economy, and for that we need a stable Middle East. Only when there is peace will oil flow.”

A canceled sale

To prove his claim that China acts responsibly in the international arena, he cited the way relations between China and Iran have developed over the years. In 1993, the two countries signed an agreement under which China would sell Iran two relatively small nuclear reactors for producing electricity. But two years later, Russia offered it a larger reactor, whose construction in Bushehr has just been completed and is now being connected to Iran’s national grid.

“Only then, in 1995, did America and Israel begin to understand that Iran’s nuclear program would also allow it to produce nuclear weapons,” Yin said. “Washington exerted heavy pressure on us, and we decided to cancel all our nuclear agreements with Iran. The Iranians were angry and imposed various embargoes on us, accusing us of caving in to American and Zionist pressure.”

Ever since, he said, China has been working methodically to convince Iran to cooperate with the international community, demonstrate goodwill and prove that its nuclear program is really intended for peaceful purposes rather than to produce nuclear weapons. For this reason, China also supported Security Council decisions to sanction Iran. “It is not in China’s interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons,” he emphasized.

Now and then, there are reports of Chinese companies aiding Iran’s nuclear effort.

“These are private rather than government firms. Whenever there are cases of illegal trade that violates international decisions, the government of China investigates. Perhaps this is not widely known, but in 2006, in the wake of a UN Security Council resolution, we stopped selling all weapons to Iran.”

But you are not willing to be more aggressive to prevent them from reaching their goal – the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

“We definitely want to stop them. In our estimation, Iran has not yet made a final decision. They have the desire to obtain nuclear weapons, but they have not yet made a final decision on it.

“I recently met with the Iranian ambassador in Beijing and told him, ‘You have missed the opportunity to produce nuclear weapons. If you build one now, you will have to fight the United States, Israel, the West and the Arab states, too.’

“I suggested taking Japan’s route. Japan is a nuclear power. It has nuclear reactors and immense amounts of stockpiled plutonium and enriched uranium, but it has decided not to build nuclear weapons. Of course, it has the option to do so. If Japan wants to, it can build nuclear weapons within a very short time.”

How did he respond?

“He simply listened and did not respond.”

To underscore China’s unique diplomatic policy, Yin made the following surprising statement: “China is opposed to any military action against Iran that would damage regional stability and interfere with the flow of oil. But China will not stop Israel if it decides to attack Iran. For all these reasons, Israel and the Middle East need a country like China. Israel needs China’s power.”