Nuclear conference reaches agreement

Nuclear non-proliferation treaty moves ahead

A month-long United Nations conference to review progress on disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons ended with agreement to move forward in a number of areas.  A breakthrough came when states agreed to convene a conference in 2012 aimed at achieving a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, to be attended by all states in the region.

Arab states and the Non-Aligned Movement of more than 100 countries, led by Egypt, had made it clear that progress on this issue was essential for a successful conference. It will put pressure on Israel over its widely suspected, though not officially confirmed, nuclear arsenal.

The agreement, reached at last month’s Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT RevCon) was silent on Western concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme, but it did urge all states to fully comply with the Treaty, which includes a commitment by non-nuclear weapon states not to receive, acquire or manufacture nuclear weapons.

In the area of disarmament, the five officially recognised nuclear weapons states – Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States – agreed ‘to undertake further efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate all types of nuclear weapons,’ but they succeeded in removing references to a timetable for doing this.
The outcome document also included calls to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty banning all nuclear explosions, and to begin negotiating a treaty to ban the production of the fissile material used in nuclear weapons.

Negotiations continued right into the final hours of the conference, which ended on 28 May.

After the last meeting in 2005 collapsed without any substantive agreements, the ability of the 189 state parties to the Treaty to reach consensus on a compromise 28-page outcome document meant that this year’s conference was widely seen as a success.

United States under-secretary of state Ellen Tauscher said the plan ‘advances president Obama’s vision’ of a world without nuclear weapons. However, she expressed regret that the text singled out Israel in the section dealing with the Middle East, and suggested that the 2012 conference ‘has been seriously jeopardised’ because of this.

Israel confirmed these fears the next day, releasing a statement saying that it would not participate in the proposed conference, declaring that ‘given the distorted nature of this resolution, Israel will not be able to take part in its implementation.’

John Duncan, the UK’s disarmament ambassador, nonetheless welcomed the outcome of negotiations. ‘Some commentators complained about a supposed “lowest common denominator agreement” or that the main success was the absence of failure. This is to rather miss the point,’ he said, writing in his blog on the Foreign Office website. ‘The NPT RevCon is not an end in itself… the real importance lies in the process of engagement that follows.’

Joe Thwaites works at the Quaker UN Office, New York.

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