Riyadh wants agreement limiting nuclear inspection

Saudi Arabia has expressed its desire to sign an agreement that the International Agency for Atomic Energy had warned might prevent total atomic activity monitoring inside its borders.

The director of weapons dismantling in Saudi Arabia, Nayef Bin Bander al-Sadeiri, said in a conference at the UN discussing the international agreement to ban nuclear weapons, that his country notified the international agency in March on its desire to sign the comprehensive guarantees agreements and the additional protocols.

Diplomats in the international agency described the additional protocols which can be signed by countries which have small amounts or do not have nuclear items as a grave gap in the international inspection system. The agency indicated in a report that some 86 countries signed this protocol. This represents half the number of the 188 countries which signed the NPT.