Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi says Arab states, as well as Palestinians, should be allowed to have nuclear weapons, as long as Israel retains its nukes.

"If the Israelis have the nuclear weapons and the nuclear capabilities, then it is the right of the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Saudis to have the same," Gaddafi told the British Sky network on Sunday night.

"Even the Palestinians should have the same because their counterparts, or their opponents, have nuclear capabilities," the Libyan leader added.

He stressed that the only way to prevent proliferation of nuclear arms in the Middle East is to disarm Israel of its nuclear weapons.

"If we don't want this situation, we'll have to disarm the Israelis from their nuclear weapons and capabilities," Gaddafi said.

Most experts estimate that Israel has at least between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads, largely based on information leaked to the Sunday Times newspaper in the 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu, a former worker at the country's Dimona nuclear reactor.