United Nations: Turkish President Abdullah Gul said he will call for a Middle East totally free of nuclear weapons when he addresses the UN General Assembly later this week.
"We would like to see our region free of nuclear weapons," Gul told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday. "The region should not be under such a threat."
Gul said he intends to raise the issue when he addresses the world body on Thursday.
Gul has called in the past for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, but his latest comments come amid deteriorating relations with Israel following the May 31 Israeli commando raid on a Turkish ferry that was part of an aid flotilla attempting to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Eight Turks and a Turkish-American were killed.
Israel is generally assumed to have assembled a sizable arsenal of nuclear warheads since the 1960s, but declines to discuss its status as a nuclear power.
Gul's remarks will likely antagonise the United States, because Washington sees any move to raise the issue of Israel's nuclear arsenal as potentially destabilising at a time of renewed Israel-Palestinian peace talks.
Gul said Turkey, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, only wants to ensure stability and security in the region.
The US has been more concerned about the nuclear programme in Iran, which is under four sets of Security Council sanctions for refusing to stop its uranium enrichment and ignoring other UN demands meant to ease global concerns that it is seeking to make atomic weapons.
Peaceful purposes
Tehran maintains that all of its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes. But the International Atomic Energy Agency says it cannot confirm that because Iran has only selectively cooperated with the UN watchdog agency and has rejected several nuclear inspectors.
"Iran must do what it has thus far failed to do — meet its obligations and ensure the rest of the world of the peaceful nature of its intentions," US Energy Secretary Steven Chu told delegates in Vienna on Monday.
No apology: Meeting scrapped
A planned meeting between Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Turkish counterpart was scrapped because of the Israeli leader's refusal to apologise for the deadly commando raid on a Turkish-led flotilla that tried to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said on Monday.
In the latest bid to repair Israel's relations with its only Muslim ally in the region, Peres told reporters he had agreed to join Turkish President Abdullah Gul at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, then accepted Gul's invitation to meet on the sidelines. But Israeli officials said Gul then set unacceptable conditions for the meeting.
