Qatar renewed its call to intensify international efforts to subject all Israeli nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

This came in her speech before the quarterly session of the Agency's Board of Governors in Vienna, according to a statement by the Qatari Foreign Ministry on Saturday.

In his speech, Jassim Al Hammadi, Qatar's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Organizations in Vienna, stressed "the need for the international community and its institutions to implement their commitments under the resolutions of the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the resolution of the 1995 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which called on Israel to subject all its nuclear facilities to the Agency's safeguards system."

He pointed out that "some of these resolutions explicitly called on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear state."

He explained that "all countries in the Middle East region, with the exception of Israel, have become parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and have safeguards agreements in force with the Agency."

This is not the first time that Qatar has called for Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and subject its nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

It had previously raised the same two demands during its participation in the 67th session of the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna in September 2023.

The quarterly session of the Agency's Board of Governors was held in Vienna from 3 to 7 March.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has not joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and unofficial estimates indicate that it possesses a nuclear arsenal.

According to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in 2023, Israel is estimated to have about 90 nuclear warheads, with the potential to produce enough plutonium to make between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons.

The Israeli nuclear program began in the 1950s, with the establishment of the Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona.

This program was supported by Western countries, most notably France, which provided Israel with a nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant in Dimona during the late 1950s.

It is noteworthy that Western countries remain silent about the Israeli nuclear program, while they are exerting pressure on Iran and North Korea in this regard.