|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Annan Seeks to Promote Nuclear Nonproliferation in Reform Proposal for United Nations By Jim Wurst UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in a new report called on nuclear weapons states to accept their “unique responsibility” in maintaining international security by making irreversible cuts in their arsenals and backed greater authority for the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure nuclear technology is not diverted from civil to military uses (see GSN, March 10). “Progress in both disarmament and nonproliferation is essential and neither should be held hostage to the other. Recent moves towards disarmament by the nuclear-weapon states should be recognized,” Annan wrote in a report on reforming the United Nations. “However, the unique status of nuclear weapon states also entails a unique responsibility, and they must do more, including but not limited to further reductions in their arsenals of nonstrategic nuclear weapons and pursuing arms control agreements that entail not just dismantlement but irreversibility.” The report, released over the weekend and presented to the General Assembly this morning, said the nuclear powers should proceed quickly with negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty and should maintain the moratorium on nuclear testing. Annan added that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in May should endorse these and other nonproliferation matters. An issue that is expected to dominate the review conference will be charges that countries such as Iran are misusing their right under the treaty to peaceful nuclear technology to develop nuclear weapons. Annan’s proposals on this issue focused on strengthening the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency. “While the access of non-nuclear weapon states to the benefits of nuclear technology should not be curtailed, we should focus on creating incentives for states to voluntarily forgo the development of domestic uranium enrichment and plutonium separation capacities, while guaranteeing their supply of the fuel necessary to develop peaceful uses,” he wrote. To this end, he called for the “universal adoption” of the Additional Protocol, which gives the U.N. agency authority to conduct more intrusive investigations of a country’s nuclear program. Another option he raised, but did not endorse, would be for the agency to “act as a guarantor for the supply of fissile material to civilian nuclear users at market rates.” Annan’s report, called In Larger Freedom:Towards development, security and human rights for all, is designed to frame the reform debate for the summit that will take place at the United Nations in September — the 60th anniversary of the founding of the organization. Under the heading of “Freedom from Fear,” Annan repeated many of the proposals on disarmament and terrorism he and other officials have made in recent years, calling for universal endorsement of a definition of terrorism and the conclusion of negotiations on a comprehensive terrorism treaty and on a treaty on the suppression of nuclear terrorism by 2006. Besides concluding the convention on nuclear terrorism, Annan wrote, “It is vital that we deny terrorists access to nuclear materials. This means consolidating, securing and, when possible, eliminating hazardous materials and implementing effective export controls. While the Group of Eight … and the Security Council have taken important steps to do this, we need to make sure that these measures are fully enforced and that they reinforce each other.” The General Assembly’s legal committee is scheduled to take up the draft comprehensive and nuclear terrorism conventions later this year. Violence against civilians can never be endorsed, Annan said in the report. “It is time to set aside debates on so-called ‘state terrorism.’ The use of force by states is already thoroughly regulated under international law. And the right to resist occupation must be understood in its true meaning. It cannot include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians.” Therefore, Annan repeated his endorsement of the recommendation of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change that a definition of terrorism should include the wording that “any action constitutes terrorism if it is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or noncombatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.” Annan asked the General Assembly this morning to look at his proposals as “a comprehensive strategy” and to resist the temptation “to treat the list as an a la carte menu, and select only those that you especially fancy.” Since it was designed primarily to advance the Millennium Development Goals, social and economic policies — such as increasing official development aid — took up the bulk of the report. Annan also called expansion of the Security Council, but he did not endorse a specific plan for that expansion.
| ||||||||||
Back to top
