Deal exempts Saudis from weapons inspection

VIENNA, Austria -- Board members of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency approved a deal Thursday that exempts Saudi Arabia from nuclear inspections, despite serious misgivings about the arrangement in an era of heightened proliferation fears.\nAlthough the Saudis resisted Western pressure to compromise and allow some form of monitoring, the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency had no choice but to allow it to sign on to the agreement.\nCalled the small quantities protocol, the deal allows countries whose nuclear equipment or activities are thought to be below a minimum threshold to submit a declaration instead of undergoing inspection.\nThere is little concern the Saudis are trying to make nuclear arms, but diplomats accredited to the meeting said Riyadh's resistance to inspections were disconcerting at a time of increased fears countries or terrorists might be interested in acquiring such weapons.\nThe Saudis insist they have no plans to develop nuclear arms.\nAs such, they qualify for the protocol, which has been implemented by 75 nations, most of them small and in politically stable parts of the world and which puts the onus on the nations to truthfully report that they have nothing to inspect.\nThe timing of the deal for the Saudis comes amid persistent tensions in the Middle East and concern about Iran's nuclear ambitions. It also coincides with an agency push to tighten or rescind the protocol, as suggested in a confidential IAEA document prepared for the board and also made available to AP on Tuesday.\nWhile the Saudi government insists it has no interest in nuclear arms, in the past two decades it has been linked to prewar Iraq's nuclear program and to the Pakistani nuclear black marketeer A.Q. Khan. It also has expressed interest in Pakistani missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and Saudi officials reportedly discussed pursuing the nuclear option as a deterrent in the volatile Middle East.\nThe Saudis have resisted pressure from the United States, the European Union and Australia to either back away from the small quantities protocol or agree to inspections, as reflected by a confidential EU briefing memo given to the AP earlier this week by a diplomat accredited to the agency who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to release it.