Carter says Israel has at least 150 atomic weapons

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LONDON: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has said Israel holds at least 150 nuclear weapons, the first time a U.S. president has publicly acknowledged the Jewish state's atomic arsenal.

Asked at a news conference at Wales's Hay literary festival on Sunday how a future U.S. president should deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, Carter put the risk in context by listing atomic weapons held globally.

"The U.S. has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union (Russia) has about the same, Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more. We have a phalanx of enormous weaponry ... not only of enormous weaponry but of rockets to deliver those missiles on a pinpoint accuracy target," he said, according to a transcript of his remarks.

While the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons is widely assumed, Israeli officials have never admitted their existence and U.S. officials have stuck to that line in public for years.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner said Washington should talk directly to Tehran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions.

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Years of U.S. policy, including sanctions and a debate about the possibility of military strikes, have not persuaded Iran to abandon its ambitions to produce enriched uranium.

President George W. Bush has branded calls for negotiations with Iran's president as comparable to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler before World War Two.

Carter was president from 1977 to 1981. During that time, he helped negotiate a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and concluded a strategic arms agreement with the Soviet Union.

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