100 Delegates, including from Muslim world to hold UN nuclear conference in Israel

About 100 international representatives will convene in Israel next week for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization conference.

 

Israel will be host to an important and highly-prestigious UN-sponsored international conference on the ban of nuclear tests next week, drawing representatives from Arab and Muslim countries which do not currently have diplomatic relations with Israel. Jordanian and Egyptian delegates will also attend the conference.

Arab

Arab leaders meet at an Arab League meeting. – Photo: REUTERS

Around 100 representatives will take part in the meeting organized by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), headquartered in Vienna, Austria. To ensure the safety of the participants, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued safety and travel assurances.

Leading the international delegation will be Dr. Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the CTBTO. He will meet with Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz and other Israeli officials.

One of the purposes of the visit is to persuade Israel to ratify the CTBTO treaty. Israel joined the treaty in 1996 but did not ratify it, following the lead of eight other countries: The United States, China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran and North Korea. Without their ratification the treaty cannot be enforced.

The purpose of the conference is to evaluate and draw lessons from a recent field exercise held in Jordan in November 2014. Israeli officials participated in the exercise in senior positions. The field exercise tested the preparedness of monitoring stations around the globe and equipment used by CTBTO to monitor nuclear tests.

There are hundreds of monitoring stations around the world linked to the CTBTO’s headquarters, which has the ability to monitor, identify and evaluate nuclear tests. Israel is home to two such stations and one laboratory at a small nuclear research reactor in Soreq, 20 kilometers south of Tel Aviv. In the past, CTBTO stations were the first ones to trace and identify North Korean nuclear tests.

 

View original The Jerusalem Post publication at: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Delegates-from-Middle-East-Muslim-world-to-convene-in-Israel-for-nuclear-conference-396466

About the Author:

Yossi Melman is an Israeli journalist and writer who specializes in security and intelligence affairs. He is co-author of Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel’s Secret Wars.

His blog is www.israelspy.com.