Israel’s Atomic Energy Chief Tells IAEA: We Will Share Nuclear Tech With Arab States That Make Peace

Israel is “ready” to share nuclear technology with Arab countries that make peace with the Jewish state, Israeli Atomic Energy Commission Director-General Moshe Edri said Wednesday, in a speech at the 66th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is meeting in Vienna. Edri said Israel hoped that the Abraham Accords, the normalization deals signed in 2020 with Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates, would “mark a path forward for meaningful direct dialogue within our region, including in the nuclear fora.” Nuclear technology cooperation between Israel and the Arab states would be done, Edri said, under the aegis of the IAEA. Israel has no nuclear power plants. Its main nuclear installation, the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, located outside of Dimona, was built with French assistance in the late 1950s and early 1960s and is widely believed to be used for the production of an arsenal of strategic weapons that the country neither admits to nor denies having. It also operates a smaller facility, the Soreq Nuclear Research Center, about 13 miles south of Tel Aviv, where research is conducted and radiopharmaceuticals for use in health care are produced.