Vienna, September 29 (QNA) - The State of Qatar called for intensifying international efforts to subject all Israeli nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, and for Israel to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear state.

This came in the statement of the State of Qatar before the annual general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) currently being held in Vienna, regarding Israeli nuclear capabilities, delivered by HE Chairman of the National Committee for the Prohibition of Weapons Dr. Abdulaziz Salmeen Al Jabri.

His Excellency explained that this demand was confirmed by international legitimacy resolutions half a century ago, including the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly since 1974, Security Council Resolutions 487 of 1981 and 687 of 1991, numerous International Atomic Energy Agency resolutions, and the resolution of the Review Conference of the Middle East Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995, which called on Middle Eastern countries that are not signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to join the treaty and accept the IAEA safeguards system.

The State of Qatar urged the international community, and the three depositary states of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to bear a special responsibility in their capacity as permanent members of the Security Council that adopted the Middle East Resolution of 1995, to work to correct the course and take actual steps to achieve progress towards implementing the resolutions of international legitimacy, especially since Israels accession to the treaty and subjecting All its nuclear facilities are under the IAEA's comprehensive safeguards regime which is a prerequisite for establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

Al Jabri stressed that confronting nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is at the core of the tasks assigned to the International Atomic Energy Agency, as the agency had a role within the framework of establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East and applying the agencys full-scale safeguards to all nuclear activities in the region.

The Director-General of the Agency was mandated to hold consultations with countries in the region to facilitate the early application of full-scale IAEA safeguards on all nuclear activities in the region as a necessary step towards establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

In its statement, the State of Qatar appealed to the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency to take an initiative to break the current impasse, stressing the need to keep the issue of Israeli nuclear capabilities under discussion within the agency's policy-making bodies.

It is worth noting that the State of Qatar is participating in the work of the 67th session of the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency, held in Vienna for the period from September 25 to 29, with a delegation headed by HE Chairman of the National Committee for the Prohibition of Weapons Dr. Abdul Aziz Salmeen Al Jabri, and with the membership of Charge dAffaires of the Embassy of the State of Qatar in Vienna and to international organizations in Vienna Jamal bin Abdul Rahman Al Jaber. (QNA)