Arab states target Israel in U.N. nuclear debate

By Sylvia Westall and Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA (Reuters) - Arab nations backed by Iran urged Israel to join a global anti-nuclear arms pact at a rare and divisive U.N. atomic watchdog debate a day after new sanctions were passed against Tehran.

Israel, presumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear weapons arsenal, condemned the push at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting on Thursday as being fuelled by countries which question the Jewish state's existence.

Western countries warned that honing in on Israel could jeopardise broader steps aimed at banning weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

"What the region needs is to come together in a cooperative, consensual way," Washington's envoy Glyn Davies said. "This is not going to happen if the parties of the region engage in name-calling, if they wag fingers at each other."

It was the first time the IAEA's policy-making board tackled the topic since 1991, coinciding with wider scrutiny of Israel after its raid on a Gaza-bound aid convoy and a U.N. conference which put its nuclear policy in the spotlight.

"Israel continues to defy the international community through its continued refusal to accede to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)," Sudan's envoy Mahmoud El-Amin told the 35-nation meeting in Vienna on behalf of Arab states.

"The Israeli nuclear danger is reinforced by (its) aggressive policies towards Arab countries," he said.

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