Current Controls Not Enough to Keep WMD Out of Terrorists’ Hands, Leaders Say

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — While they issued the familiar refrain that weapons of mass destruction must be kept out of terrorists’ hands, members of the U.N. General Assembly this week offered few ideas about how to make sure that happens beyond a call for greater multilateral cooperation (see GSN, Aug. 27).

Multilateral nonproliferation treaties help slow the spread of weapons technology, said Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, speaking on behalf of the European Union. Those efforts, however, “have not succeeded in putting a complete stop to proliferation. Additional measures are necessary, in particular to combat the risk of terrorist organizations gaining access to those weapons and delivery systems,” Bot said.

“Strict verification is the key” to safeguarding dangerous materials, said Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.

“The U.N. should establish a permanent inspection and verification mechanism that can reinforce and supplement existing verification systems,” he said. In addition, the United Nations should help the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop “more rigorous controls on sensitive nuclear technology.” 

Martin called this “the responsibility to deny,” meaning “the need to ensure that weapons of mass destruction do not spread to states or terrorists prepared to use them under any circumstances. … Nonproliferation and disarmament remain fundamental pillars of the U.N.’s commitment to international peace and security.”

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the Chemical Weapons Convention “is a good model to follow in respect of other weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons.” That treaty applies universally to parties and the verification system is nondiscriminatory, he said. 

“There is an increasing reliance on restrictive regimes and the use of punitive action to confront this threat to international peace and security,” Singh said. “We believe that it is only a global consensus of willing nations that would ultimately prove to be more effective in this regard.” 

In a quiet critique of U.S. policy, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing also criticized the drift away from universal nonproliferation standards. It is “important to discard unilateralism and double standards and give full credit and play to [the] role of the U.N.,” he said. “China holds that multilateral arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation processes be steadily promoted so as to further improve the international nonproliferation regime.”

Both North and South Korea endorsed a multilateral approach on their nuclear issues, but with considerably different emphases. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said, “South Korea will faithfully abide by the norms set out in agreements on nuclear nonproliferation” (see GSN, Sept. 27), and called on North Korea to participate in the six-party talks to settle the communist nation’s nuclear issue. 

Once settled, “North Korea would indeed be able to become a full-fledged member of the international community, enabling it to gain all the accompanying benefits,” Ban said. “It is our fervent wish that North Korea will make a strategic decision to forgo all its nuclear weapons programs … in a thorough and transparent manner.”

North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon said the deep-rooted “hostile policy” of the United States left his country “with no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent” since Washington “has been attempting to eliminate [North Korea] by force” (see related GSN story, today).  

He said his government proposed a step-by-step plan in the negotiations that would “solve the nuclear issue fundamentally through addressing each other’s concerns,” starting with Pyongyang freezing its nuclear program and the United States lifting economic sanctions and “delisting” North Korea as a sponsor of terrorism. Choe said the United States disregarded this “common understanding” and “has been further intensifying its hostile acts against [North Korea] in a more undisguised way.”

The general debate began last week and concludes on Friday. On Monday, the assembly’s disarmament committee begins its annual session.

Egypt and Iran were among the Middle East countries renewing the call for a regional zone free of all weapons of mass destruction, while Iran and Israel both framed the issue of the proliferation in the region by attacking the other and ignoring their own controversies. 

“The international community continues to be selective in addressing the question of weapons of mass destruction,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. “The international community seeks to impose a firm regime to monitor the imports of all the member states of the nonproliferation regime. … The same international community, however, turns a blind eye at the continued stockpiling of nuclear capabilities by” Israel.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said, “Today we are also more united than ever in opposition to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The international community now realizes that Iran … does not only pose a threat to the security of Israel, but to the security and stability of the whole world. Indeed, Iran has replaced Saddam Hussein as the world’s No. 1 exporter of terror, hate and instability.”

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi of Iran countered that Israel’s arsenal, “including its weapons of mass destruction [is] the single greatest threat to regional and global peace and security. Israel cannot hide these facts behind smoke screens.” He referred only obliquely to the controversy over Iran’s own nuclear program. “While we insist on our right to technology for peaceful purposes, we have and will leave no stone unturned in order to provide assurances of our peaceful intentions,” said Kharazi.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, citing recent terrorist attacks including the school massacre in Beslan, said the U.N. Security Council needed a new resolution to identify “weak links in the antiterrorism network and increase practical cooperation.” Countries need to do more to ensure asylum rights are not abused as a cover for terrorism, he said.

Russia distributed its new draft resolution to council members yesterday. The draft lists a series of actions that “constitute terrorist acts” and says such acts “are under no circumstances justifiable by consideration of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature.” The activities include “acts against civilians with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury or the taking of hostages with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public” or to “intimidate” people or governments to take or refrain from “doing any act.”

If the draft were accepted as written, it would be the closest thing the United Nations has as a definition of terrorism. Therefore, the Russian draft moves the U.N. terrorism debate to a new level. The two previous Security Council resolutions most directly dealing with terrorism are 1267 of December 1999 that condemns the Taliban for allowing Afghanistan to be used to support international terrorism, and Resolution 1373, which was passed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and demanded U.N. nations enact antiterrorism legislation. Neither resolution defined terrorism.

The General Assembly has been debating for several years a draft antiterrorism treaty, which is being held up over disagreements over the definition of terrorism and how far the use of force by the armed forces of states can be excluded from that definition. The committee negotiating this treaty is scheduled to meet next month. The Russian draft calls on countries to “cooperate fully in resolving all outstanding issues” in these negotiations.

India was the original sponsor of the draft terrorism treaty. Said Indian Prime Minister Singh, speaking the same day as Lavrov, “It is a sad reality that international networks of terror appear to cooperate more effectively among themselves than the democratic nations that they target. We speak about cooperation, but seem hesitant to commit ourselves to a global offensive to root out terrorism. … This must change. We do have a global coalition against terrorism. We must now give it substance and credibility, avoiding selective approaches and political expediency.”

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.