Positive peace proposal from Iran has optimistic precedent

The article by Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif (“Iran has signed
up to peace.Surely now it’s Israel’s turn,” 31July
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/31/iran-nuclear-deal-israel-vienna-treaty-middle-east-wmd ) will have read as
if written from a parallel universe, so demonized has Iran been in
much media coverage in Britain and the US in the past  few months

However, his proposal for a WMD-free zone in the region is realistic,
despite tensions between Israel, Arab states and Iran, as there is a
positive precedent.

At the Paris Summit of Mediterranean countries, held on 13 July 2008,
under the co-presidency of the French Republic and Egypt - and
importantly in the presence of Israel, which was represented by its
then Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert -  the issue of peace within the
region were explored in depth, and the final declaration stated the
participants were  in favour of:
"regional security by acting in favour of nuclear, chemical and
biological non-proliferation through adherence to and compliance with
a combination of international and regional nonproliferation regimes
and arms control and disarmament agreements.."


The final document goes on to say:
"The parties shall pursue a mutually and effectively verifiable Middle
East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical and
biological, and their delivery systems. Furthermore the parties will
consider practical steps to prevent the proliferation of nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons as well as excessive accumulation of
conventional arms."
(http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/er/101847.pdf)
Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings
Institution in Washington DC, argued in an article in middle east
publication al-monitor on  28 July (“Israel, not Iran, started Middle
East nuclear arms race,”http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/israel-nuclear-weapons-intelligence-us-idf-npt.html) that “A comprehensive and thorough discussion of the balance of power
[in the middle east] should include Israel’s real strategic
situation,”  which includes its own 80 or so nuclear weapons. He is
right.