Geneva - The United Nations Conference on Disarmament yesterday launched negotiations to stop the production of nuclear bomb-making materials, after Israel gave in to US persuasion and dropped its effective veto.
But a government statement issued in Jerusalem said Israel still had "problems of principle" with such a treaty and stopped far short of any commitment to open a top secret reactor widely believed to be a bomb plant.
The pact, expected to take years to complete, is viewed as the next step in multilateral nuclear disarmament following the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty banning underground blasts.