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Netanyahu rethinks civil nuclear power plans following Japanese crisis

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that the Japanese earthquake and subsequent nuclear crisis has made him “reconsider projects of building civil nuclear plants” in Israel. Netanyahu made the comments during an interview with Piers Morgan of CNN which aired in the US last night. “In fact, you’d have to give me a very good argument to do it,” Netanyahu said referring to building nuclear plants. “And fortunately we found natural gas” he added.

Ahead of Netanyahu’s comments yesterday, the Ministry of National Infrastructure said that there were no formal plans for Israel to build a nuclear power plant. “There’s a general idea to build one maybe 10, 15 years down the line in the Shifta Region [of the Negev],” a spokesperson for the ministry said.

Countries building civilian nuclear power plants have to be supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and must also sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel has not signed the treaty and maintains a stance of ambiguity over its nuclear technology capabilities.