Solana: EU wants Mideast free of nuclear weapons

The European Union wants a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, the bloc's Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said Thursday, reacting to reports that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had acknowledged that his government possessed nuclear warheads. In response to a question whether the EU would take action against Israel over the nuclear issue, Solana noted that Olmert had issued a denial. "The position of the European Union is very clear," Solana said. "In the long term we don't want to have the Middle East with weapons of mass destruction." Since the 1960s, Israel has maintained a policy of ambiguity about its alleged nuclear arsenal, always refusing to confirm or to deny reports that it possessed the weapons.