BERLIN, Dec 11: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday appeared to list his country for the first time among states which have the nuclear bomb, before his official spokesman issued a denial.

“We never threatened any nation with annihilation,” Olmert said on German television station N24 Sat1. “Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as France, America, Russia and Israel?” he asked.

Miri Eisin, the premier's spokesman, said that Olmert, who on Monday started a visit to Berlin, had not meant to list the Jewish state among countries with nuclear weapons. “Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the region,” he told AFP, using the country's standard phrase at the heart of its longstanding “policy of ambiguity” on whether it has the bomb.

Israel's former ambassador to Washington on Saturday criticised as “lamentable” the apparent public disclosure by US defence secretary-designate Robert Gates that the Jewish state was a “nuclear power”.

“These are lamentable words,” Danny Ayalon said on Israeli television.

“It is not up to Washington to end the policy of ambiguity” on Israel's nuclear capabilities, he said, referring to the fact that his country has never confirmed whether it has nuclear weapons.

Gates told the Senate armed forces committee last week that Iran was “surrounded by nuclear powers, with Pakistan to the east, Russia to the North, Israel to the west”.

Israel is believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East which, experts say, has some 200 nuclear weapons.—AFP