Japan crisis gives Israel pause on nuclear power: PM

[1]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview aired on Thursday the Japanese nuclear crisis has made him reconsider his nation's plans for civilian atomic energy.

The Jewish state does not have civilian nuclear energy although it has built some research plants, Netanyahu told CNN said, but added: "I don't think we're going to pursue civil nuclear energy in the coming years."

Referring to the crisis in Japan where an earthquake triggered a tsunami and crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant, he said: "There's a difference between natural disasters and what we see on Friday.

"You have an earthquake that passes. This is different, this is a confluence of a natural disaster and a man-made disaster," he added.

"And the clouds of radioactivity, the uncertainty of what will happen with it, is the cloud that hangs over the people of Japan, and I think right now hangs over the world.

"It certainly caused me to reconsider a project of building civil nuclear power plants. I have to tell you, I was a lot more enthusiastic about it than I am now. In fact, you'd have to give me a very good argument to do it."

His comments came as teams of Japanese workers and troops battled to prevent meltdown at the quake-hit nuclear plant, and as alarm over the disaster grew with more foreign governments advising their citizens to flee.