New Delhi: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stumbled into controversy during a visit to Germany on Monday when he listed Israel among the nations that have nuclear weapons in an interview.
But his office said the remark was misinterpreted even as Israel is widely believed to have the West Asia’s only nuclear arsenal.
Israel's policy has always been to declare that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the West Asia, without confirming or denying it has them.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised the subject of Israel's nuclear capability last week at a Senate confirmation hearing. He said that Israel had atomic weapons.
Foreign experts have concluded that Israel has hundreds of nuclear bombs and is the sixth-largest nuclear weapons power in the world.
In his television interview, Olmert summoned bitter memories of the World War Two killings of six million Jews by the Nazis that dog Israeli ties with Germany, to press his case for Germany to step up measures against Iran's nuclear programme.
The US and Israel suspect Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Germany, with France and Britain, negotiated a suspension of Iran's nuclear enrichment in 2003 on behalf of the European Union, but that deal broke down in August 2005.
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