Barack Obama, the US president, has agreed to abide by a 40-year policy of allowing Israel to keep nuclear weapons without opening them to international inspection, according to a US newspaper.
In a report on Saturday, The Washington Times quoted three unnamed sources as saying Obama had confirmed to Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, that he would maintain the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
The incident reportedly occurred when the two met at the White House in Washington DC in May.
Neither Israel’s embassy in Washington, nor the White House National Security Council would comment on the claim.
Avner Cohen, an Israeli expert and author, was quoted by the paper as saying that under the deal “the United States passively [accepts] Israel’s nuclear weapons status as long as Israel does not unveil publicly its capability or test a weapon”.
There is no official accounting of the deal, supposedly agreed in 1969 between Richard Nixon, then US president, and Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister at the time.
Read the full article on Al Jazeera.
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