IAEA declines Vanunu meeting

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JERUSALEM -- The International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday it would not seek a meeting with whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician who a day earlier asked to speak with the visiting delegation.

In his only published remarks to an American newspaper since being released from prison in April, Mr. Vanunu on Tuesday told The Washington Times he would like to meet IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei during the official's 48-hour visit to Israel.

He also urged the IAEA chief to seek access to the Dimona reactor, the top-secret nuclear facility in Israel's Negev desert, where Mr. Vanunu once worked as a technician.

The conversation with The Times took place in apparent defiance of restrictions placed on Mr. Vanunu by Israeli authorities.

Meanwhile, dozens of Israeli jeeps moved into three cities in the northern West Bank early today, surrounding buildings and searching houses, Palestinian security sources told Agence France-Presse.

Fierce clashes erupted in the northern city of Jenin when about 30 Israeli jeeps pushed into the center and surrounded several buildings, the sources said.

Troops also pushed into the northwestern city of Qalqilya, with about 15 jeeps surrounding a house belonging to a member of the radical Hamas movement, they said.

In Nablus, dozens of soldiers surrounded two buildings at the city's northern entrance.

Mr. Vanunu, denounced as a traitor by many of his countrymen, served more than 17 years in prison after revealing details of the country's nuclear program to a British newspaper.

Mr. Vanunu on Tuesday accused Mr. ElBaradei of kowtowing to Israel.

But the IAEA's director of communications, Mark Gwozdesky, said yesterday: "We are here as guests of our Israeli counterparts and have no intention of busting in on Dimona or on people we were not scheduled to see."

He said the IAEA visitors were dealing with sensitive issues such as regional dialogue on nuclear nonproliferation and did not wish to raise the political temperature unnecessarily.

Israel's chief nuclear spokesman, Gidon Shavit, said the hosts had received no request from the IAEA for a meeting with Mr. Vanunu, either before or after publication of the technician's remarks.

Asked whether Israel would accede to any such request, Mr. Shavit said: "As we still have received no request, we have no need to answer a hypothetical question."

Washington Times reporter Rowan Scarborough, in his book "Rumsfeld's War," disclosed what is thought to be the U.S. government's only estimate of Israel's nuclear arsenal.

The book cited a secret Defense Intelligence Agency report that says Israel has 85 deployed nuclear warheads.