NPT Review Conference Opens

By Jim Wurst and Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — The 2005 review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty opened this morning with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urging participants to give equal weight to all the pillars of the treaty to secure its survival (see GSN, April 29).

“Some will paint proliferation as a grave threat. Others will argue that existing nuclear arsenals are a deadly danger,” Annan said in his opening remarks. “I challenge you to accept that disarmament, nonproliferation and the right to peaceful uses [of nuclear power] are all valid.”

Debate during the review conference is likely to be split between the insistence by some of the nuclear-weapon states, in particular the United States, that the gravest threat the treaty faces comes from cheaters developing nuclear weapons under the cover of civilian nuclear technologies, and leading non-nuclear states that maintain the nuclear powers are not doing enough to fulfill their disarmament obligations. The United States is expected to press for the closing of “loopholes” in civilian nuclear development; the nonaligned nations, while recognizing the dangers, will resist any restrictions that could be seen as denying states access to nuclear technology.

“International regimes do not fail because of one breach, however serious or unacceptable,” Annan said. “They fail when many breaches pile one on top of the other, to the point where the gap between promise and performance becomes unbridgeable. As you review the NPT, your urgent task is to narrow that gap.”

“The only way to guarantee that [nuclear weapons] will never be used is for our world to be free of such weapons,” Annan said. “Some of the initial steps are obvious,” he said.

They include negotiating a treaty to halt production of fissile materials, maintaining the moratorium on nuclear testing pending the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, taking nuclear weapons off alert status, calling on the nuclear powers to give assurances they will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states and reducing nuclear weapons states’ “reliance on nuclear deterrence,” Annan said. All of these steps — while endorsed by the 2000 Review Conference — are now opposed by at least one of the nuclear powers.

Annan called on NPT member states to “find durable ways to reconcile the right to peaceful uses [of nuclear energy] with the imperative of nonproliferation.” To this end, he repeated his endorsement of making the Additional Protocol to the IAEA safeguards agreement — which permits more intrusive inspections of suspected nuclear sites — universal and coming to agreement “to create incentives for states to voluntarily forgo the development of fuel cycle facilities.”

Admittedly stepping out of his role as the world’s top nonproliferation official, ElBaradei urged all nuclear-armed nations, including those outside the NPT regime, to move toward relinquishing their nuclear arsenals.

“It is not my role to set forth what a disarmament roadmap should look like,” he said, but, “As long as some countries place strategic reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, other countries will emulate them. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking otherwise.”

Progress on disarmament would ease the way to demanding that non-nuclear states remain without nuclear weapons, he said. That, ElBaradei reminded delegates, is the fundamental mission of the treaty.

Such progress should be possible, ElBaradei said. “It is clear that nuclear-weapon states could make further irreversible reductions in their existing arsenals. In addition, confidence in disarmament commitments clearly would be enhanced if nuclear-weapon states were to take concrete action to reduce the strategic role currently given to nuclear weapons.”

As IAEA head, ElBaradei’s mission is not chiefly one of promoting disarmament.

“For people who already have a problem with the director general, they will point to his emphasis on disarmament as another sign that he is exceeding his authority,” said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace.

The United States has led a so-far unilateral effort to deny ElBaradei a third term as agency head, but has apparently failed to garner any international support (see GSN, April 28).

ElBaradei’s message appeared to depart from the U.S. strategy here, which is expected to emphasize treaty compliance issues and to try to shut down the treaty’s “loopholes,” the ability of nations to build a legal nuclear infrastructure that can easily be converted to produce nuclear-weapon materials. The United States is scheduled to address the conference this afternoon (see related GSN story, today).

ElBaradei acknowledged that problem today and called for “better control over proliferation sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle: activities that involve uranium enrichment and plutonium separation.” He repeated his previous proposal for a moratorium on building such facilities, but did not call for a five-year period for the suspension, as he has in the past.

The moratorium proposal has found little support, particularly among developing nations, Iran in particular. ElBaradei said, however, that those nations would actually benefit from tighter nonproliferation rules.

“There is no incompatibility between tightening controls over the nuclear fuel cycle and expanding the use of peaceful nuclear technology. In fact by reducing the risks of proliferation, we could pave the way for more widespread use of peaceful nuclear applications,” he said.

As expected, Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil was elected president of the conference by acclamation, as were most of the other officers. However, the conference begins without an agenda. Duarte said that in his talks he saw “some progress on narrowing differences” but no consensus. He said the parties are willing to proceed with their work while negotiations over the agenda continue. 

The issue of North Korea’s withdrawal from the treaty will be avoided with the same procedural maneuver used in the preparatory meetings. In order not to prejudice the six-party talks and “not to open the debate on noncompliance,” Duarte said the North Korean nameplate will be held by him for the duration of the conference.

The general debate begins this afternoon and runs through May 11. The conference is scheduled to conclude on May 27.

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