Israel Testing Nuclear Weapons, Soviets Claim

A Soviet news report excerpted in a Beirut newspaper Thursday accuses Israel of carrying out underground atomic tests and of possessing 40 nuclear warheads with missiles to carry them.

The report came in an Arabic-language article distributed in Beirut by the Soviet’s Union’s state-run Novosti press agency. Excerpts were reproduced by the Middle East Reporter, a Beirut-based daily news digest.

Novosti did not cite a source for its report. There was no immediate Israeli comment. In the past, Israel has refused to confirm or deny that it has nuclear weapons.

‘Escalating Nuclear Might’

The Novosti article, headlined “Israel on the Footsteps of Its (American) Masters Escalated Its Nuclear Might,” said:

“Israel has decided to deploy a tactical nuclear weapon less costly than the American Pershing missile, and increased the number of warheads to 40 in 1985.

“Israel has also been escalating its nuclear might by undertaking underground nuclear tests in the Negev desert.”

Israel has its largest nuclear reactor in the Negev, which is in southern Israel adjacent to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

The Novosti report coincided with an officially reported exchange of letters between Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Syrian President Hafez Assad over Syria’s recent deployment of anti-aircraft missiles along its border with Lebanon.

Israel considers the Soviet-supplied SAM-2 batteries a threat to its reconnaissance flights over Lebanon to monitor military and guerrilla activity.

Israel has also expressed concern about Syria’s deployment of truck-mounted SAM-6 and SAM-8 missiles in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Those missiles were pulled back after an Israeli warning relayed by the United States last month. However, Israel said Thursday that they have been moved into the valley again.

Defends Action

Syria, which is Moscow’s main Middle East ally, has rejected a U.S. plea to pull back the SAM-2 missiles on its side of the border and defended its right to deploy inside Syria “any kind of weapons necessary to its self-defense.”

Gorbachev’s message was delivered to Assad on Tuesday, Syria’s state radio reported. It did not disclose the message’s contents or Assad’s reply. But several Beirut newspapers quoted unidentified “observers in Damascus” as saying the exchange dealt with the Syrian-Israeli “missile confrontation.” No specifics were reported.

The reports said the messages also dealt with Iraq’s complaints to Moscow that Syria and Libya are providing Iran with Soviet-supplied weapons to help its war effort against Iraq. Reports in the Arab press said that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein made the complaint directly to Gorbachev during his visit to Moscow last week.