By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A meeting planned for this month between the five declared nuclear weapons states and five Central Asian states on a treaty establishing a nuclear weapon-free zone in Central Asia has been postponed, a U.N. official told GSN yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 15).

The meeting, which was to discuss written proposals submitted by the nuclear states to modify the treaty’s text, has been delayed because of the Iraq situation, said Stefano Tomat of the U.N. Disarmament Affairs Department.  He indicated that the meeting might be rescheduled for the end of April.

This month’s planned meeting was meant to give the Central Asian states an opportunity to respond the nuclear weapons states’ proposals, which were submitted at a meeting held in New York in December of last year.  Of the five declared states, China and Russia have openly offered support for the treaty and have recommended few changes to its text, U.N. Undersecretary General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala said in January. 

The three Western nuclear powers — France, the United Kingdom and the United States — have expressed concerns with several of the treaty’s provisions, including those related to the transit of nuclear weapons through the zone, the possible further expansion of the zone, and the relationship between the treaty and other regional agreements.

The five Central Asian states involved in the zone’s creation — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — had planned to sign the treaty next month.

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