Lest you think that there are lots of new ideas, bMohamed ElBaradei wrote this in 1992, back before he was DG. Explaining that the IAEA GC in 1989 “requested the Director General to consult with the States concerned in the Middle East with a view to applying Agency safeguards to all nuclear installations in the area,” he added:

In the course of the consultations, which took the Director General to a number of States in the Middle East, it became clear that there was general agreement among States of the region on the desirability of applying IAEA safeguards to all nuclear facilities in the Middle East.

Opinions differed, however, as to whether this should precede or follow the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone and whether this could precede or follow a comprehensive peace in the region. A special emphasis was placed by many States on the need to develop a special and more comprehensive safeguards approach tailored to the special needs of the Middle East. A number of the States emphasized the importance of a system of mutual inspection by the parties, in addition to verification by the IAEA, as a necessary confidence building measure.