|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
NPT Deadlock Continues As Delegates Seek Compromise By Jim Wurst UNITED NATIONS — The final week of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference began today with no indication that the deadlock that has marked the monthlong meeting is anywhere near being resolved (see GSN, May 20). The United States has rejected any suggestion that it is not fulfilling its disarmament commitments under the treaty while insisting that the conference take action against Iran over its nuclear program. Iran says its program is permissible under the treaty and that the nuclear weapons policies of the United States violate the treaty. In between, states have submitted numerous proposals that could form the basis of a consensus that would balance the disarmament and nonproliferation concerns of the parties. The European Union, Nonaligned Movement, the New Agenda Coalition, Canada and Japan have all made speeches and submitted working papers on initiatives parties could take over the next five years to strengthen the treaty’s provisions for advancing disarmament, blocking proliferation and addressing access to nuclear technology. The EU “common position” lists “a number of issues which we consider fundamental, covering the NPT’s three pillars of nonproliferation, disarmament and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” said Ambassador Paul Kayser of Luxembourg, speaking on behalf of the union last week. Those include seeing further progress by the United States and Russia in verifiably reducing their arsenals, placing into force the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, taking “appropriate practical measures in order to reduce the risk of accidental nuclear war,” and working to create “an effectively verifiable zone free of nuclear weapons” in the Middle East, Kayser said. The United States has used meetings of the three conference committees to make its case against noncompliance with the treaty, specifically by Iran. “NPT parties must have strong declaratory polices that establish the necessity of compliance with the NPT,” U.S. Ambassador Jackie Sanders said last week. “It should be clear that there is zero tolerance for noncompliance with the NPT’s nonproliferation undertakings, and that NPT parties are prepared to take firm and prompt action to hold any violator accountable for its actions.” An Iranian envoy on Thursday accused the United States of forwarding “accusations and passing arbitrary unjustified judgments against my country, through presenting completely distorted facts and conclusion.” Sanders also rejected the argument that U.S. nuclear policies were undermining the treaty. “There are those who say that certain United States policies somehow are to blame for others’ decisions to pursue nuclear weapons. These, however, are merely the words of nuclear proliferators or their apologists,” she said. “It is both logically and legally untenable for those who wish that nuclear disarmament were progressing at a faster rate to pretend that compliance with nonproliferation obligations is linked to compliance with disarmament obligations. … Such thinking is, simply put, dangerous in the extreme.” However, nongovernmental experts following the conference have blamed the United States for the impasse at the meeting. The Bush administration has walked away from U.S. commitments made at the 1995 and 2000 review conferences, Aaron Tovish, international campaign manager for Mayors for Peace, said today. “So they basically have gutted the review process,” he said. “What you see is a valiant effort by a majority of countries not to allow that to that happen.” “There are efforts going on in the U.S. Congress to challenge the basis upon which this administration has entered into these discussions …. It certainly would be a great thing if the president would listen to a bipartisan voice coming from the Congress.” Tovish said. The U.S. position since the 2004 preparatory meeting for the conference has been “to sideline, walk back from the commitments and obligations that they themselves had negotiated together with the other states parties in [at review conferences] 1995 … and 2000,” Rebecca Johnson, executive director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, said on Friday (see GSN, May 16). A possible compromise is one that would “openly acknowledge that [the United States] accept and intend to implement the obligations and commitments they undertook in ‘95 and 2000,” Johnson said. “Then we could move on to these other really very useful and practical proposals dealing with things like the fuel cycle.”
| ||||||||||
Back to top
