Israel and Iran would be expected to attend talks on making the Middle East free of nuclear weapons, according to a draft final document released Tuesday at a UN non-proliferation conference.

The issue of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East is one of the most contentious at the conference reviewing the 189-nation Non-Proliferation Treaty, the world's mandate for fighting the spread of atomic weapons.

The draft calls for "an initial conference in 2012, to be attended by all states of the Middle East, leading to the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction, on the basis of arrangements freely arrived at by the states in the region."

Israel is not mentioned by name at this point, although there is a call in the draft for Israel to join the NPT. Arab countries had wanted Israel denounced as a secret weapons state.

Iran is also not mentioned by name, nor is it cited in the draft for its NPT violations in hiding nuclear work and defying UN Security Council resolutions calling on it to suspend uranium enrichment in order to allay fears it seeks nuclear weapons.

The draft, which conference President Libran Cabactulan of the Philippines presented Tuesday, is an effort to avoid conflict and speed up compromise, after two weeks of committee meetings failed to achieve consensus.

"I feel that this is the spirit of what we're trying to achieve," ten years after the last consensus document, Cabactulan told a plenary meeting which broke up after an hour to give delegates time to review his 28-page draft.

The previous twice-a-decade review, in 2005, failed even to agree on a final document. The review in 2000 approved steps to disarmament.

The 1995 meeting indefinitely extended the treaty, which went into effect in 1970, and called for a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone.

Non-aligned countries complain that these reviews have not been followed by concrete actions and that verification crackdowns, such as on Iran, put their right to peaceful nuclear technology at risk.

Negotiations here are difficult. In the call for a conference on a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone, the phrase that "arrangements (would be) freely arrived at by the states in the region" was opposed by Arab states which wanted there to be an obligation to create a zone, officials close to the talks said.

The United States and Egypt have been intensely negotiating on this issue since at least a month before the NPT conference began May 3. The conference ends Friday.

Israel, which has not signed the NPT and is not represented here, is believed to have some 200 atom bombs but neither confirms nor denies this.

It supports the idea of a Middle East free of nuclear weapons but says there must first be a peace agreement for the region.

The NPT is built on a bargain. Nuclear weapons states pledge to move towards disarmament. Other states forswear the bomb in return for unfettered access to peaceful nuclear energy, such as generating electricity.

The divide between the two sides is what hinders agreement here.

Developing nations want a deadline to be set for weapons states to disarm, something countries like the United States and Russia oppose.

The draft text skirts this problem by saying "that the final phase of the nuclear disarmament process and other related measures should be pursued within a legal framework with specified timelines."

But even this tepid formulation will be subject to intense debate in the final days of the NPT conference.

The draft document calls for states which have not done so to ratify the Compehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which needs countries like the United States to ratify it, if it is to come into effect.

And the draft "welcomes the declared moratoria by some nuclear-weapon states on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons."

US President Barack Obama came to office promising to restore US credibility as a state committed to non-proliferation and has followed up with key US initiatives, including an arms control agreement with Russia.

Diplomats said this had led to an improved atmosphere at the NPT conference but was not a guarantee that a final document would be adopted.