Israel offers nuclear warheads to apartheid South Africa
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
London, May 24, IRNA - Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the former apartheid regime in South Africa, according to secret documents uncovered by American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky.
The documents are seen as the first official evidence of Israel’s long possession of illegal nuclear weapons, despite its policy of ‘ambiguity’ and defiance of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The secret military agreement signed by Israel’s former defence minister Shimon Peres in 1975 also confirms its close relationship with apartheid South Africa.
According to the Guardian newspaper Monday, Polakow-Suransky uncovered "top secret" minutes of meetings that show Peres, who is the current president of Israel, offering nuclear warheads "in three sizes".
The Israeli authorities were said to have tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at a time when it is attempting to claim to be a “responsible” power at NPT review talks in New York that are focusing on the Middle East.
Assistant editor of the Guardian, Simon Tisdall said the veil of secrecy and ambiguity over Israel’s nuclear weapons has been “torn aside” by the new revelations.
“Proof that Israel is, without any doubt, a nuclear weapons state, means an end to nods, winks and blind eyes,” Tisdall said. He said it challenges all countries in the region to address the “threat inherent in the resulting, now undeniable military imbalance.”
“The big question is how hard (US President) Obama is prepared to push Israel to climb aboard his counter-proliferation bandwagon before the wheels fall off,” he said.
The extent of Israel’s illegal nuclear arsenal, which was developed with the help of Britain some 50 years ago, were revealed in 1986 by its nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu before he was kidnapped and jailed in Israel.
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