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Summary
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled his visit to the US to attend a summit on nuclear security in Washington which will focus on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to militant groups. US President Obama will host leaders of at least 40 countries at the two-day conference to be started in Washington on Monday. According to Israeli officials, Netanyahu made the decision after learning that Egypt and Turkey intended to raise the issue of Israel's presumed nuclear arsenal in the summit. Israel has never confirmed or denied that it possesses atomic weapons. Israel's Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor will attend the summit instead of Netanyahu. According to some Israeli officials, Turkey and Egypt are planning to call on Israel to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). These states intend to exploit the occasion in order to slam Israel, said a senior Israeli source and added The prime minister expressed his displeasure over these intentions, and he will therefore not be travelling to the summit. Netanyahu said that his main priority was to deal with Iran's supposed intention to develop both warheads and long-range missiles capable of hitting Israel. Along with India, Pakistan and North Korea, Israel is one of just four states that have not signed the NPT, which has 189 signatories. Earlier this week, President Obama unveiled the new Nuclear Posture Review - which narrows the circumstances in which the US would use nuclear weapons. On Thursday, the US president and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a landmark nuclear arms treaty in the Czech capital, Prague. That treaty commits the former Cold War enemies to reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 each - 30% lower than the previous ceiling. The cancellation of Netanyahu's Washington visit comes at a time of frosty relations between the two states. The Israeli premier failed to see eye-to-eye with Obama during his most recent US visit last month on the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Washington criticised the building of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, which prompted the Palestinians to pull out of US-brokered indirect peace talks. There were also reports that one of Netanyahu's confidants called Obama a disaster for Israel.
