Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician who exposed Israel's nuclear program and served an 18-year prison term, arrives at the Magistrate's Court in Jerusalem on April 30, 2007. (Anat Zakai, Maan Images)

As Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, finalises his report on Iran's nuclear programme, the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, has been promoting the "historic idea" of a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction.

This overlaps with a goal adopted by the UN security council back in 1991 when resolution 687 talked about "the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region of the Middle East".

The resolution, approved after the expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait, had eight paragraphs dealing with Iraq's programmes in biological, chemical, and nuclear arms, and made clear that sanctions were to be lifted if, and only if, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other UN inspectors had given Iraq a clean bill of health regarding its WMD activities.

Paragraph 14 notes "that the actions under paragraphs 8-13 of this resolution represent steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons".

However, there is a subtle but important difference between a WMD-free Middle East and the establishment of a WMD-free zone "in" the Middle East as set out in resolution 687. The resolution does not attempt to define the zone (at least, not beyond Iraq) and the word "in" suggests such a zone might not apply to the whole of the Middle East.

Presumably this omission was not accidental, though the idea of a WMD-free zone covering only parts of the region makes no sense. The objective of a Middle East free of WMDs can be achieved only if Israel is also declared free of them by IAEA and other UN inspectors.

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