Israeli uranium trade stopped

Press, 13 July 1985, Page 11

Israeli uranium trade stopped

NZPA-Reuter Brussels International .inspectors have plugged a hole in the uranium trade that allowed Israel to acquire illegally material that could be used to make nuclear bombs, say sources in three capitals. More than 40 tonnes of depleted uranium, which experts said, could be used to produce 2kg of weaponsgrade plutonium, had reached Israel via Luxem-

burg from Britain, they said. Inspectors from Euratom, the European Economic Community’s nuclear agency, working with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency had found the material was imported by a Luxemburg metals company and reexported to Israel. Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Prolif-

eration Treaty and is widely thought to have nuclear weapons. I.A.E.A. sources said that Israel had satisfied them that the material had not this time been used to make bombs. Smaller quantities of depleted uranium from France had also gone to Israel after being imported into Luxemburg from a third country, which the sources declined to name.

Officials and diplomats in Brussels, Vienna, and Luxemburg said that the discovery had been the first under I.A.E.A. safeguard rules since the treaty was signed in 1968. The I.A.E.A. and Euratom were delighted with the find, which, officials said, showed the safeguards to be effective. British officials confirmed that nuclear material

shipped from Britain to Luxemburg under an export licence for use in steelmaking had found its way to Israel in contravention of international agreements. They said that Luxemburg had now pledged to stop the trade, which brought it into conflict with its Euratom partners, keen to halt the illegal spread of potential weapons-grade uranium.