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U.S. Still Favors Arms Control Forum, Official Says By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — The Bush administration continues to support conducting arms control and disarmament negotiations through the international Conference on Disarmament formed during the Cold War, in particular a fissile material cutoff treaty, a senior State Department official said yesterday (see GSN, May 18). The forum was used in previous decades to negotiate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the chemical and biological weapons conventions, and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, among other agreements. The Bush administration has not pursued new multilateral arms control treaties, but did urge the conference in May to draft a pact for halting global fissile material production for nuclear weapons. “The administration believes that the Conference on Disarmament retains its potential as one of the world community’s primary instruments for promoting a safer and more secure environment,” said Christina Rocca, a State Department senior adviser and until earlier this year the assistant secretary of state for South Asia. Rocca was speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on her nomination as the next U.S. representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. The only committee member in attendance was its chairman, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). Rocca criticized the forum for its inability to negotiate anything, or even formulate a work plan, over the past 10 years, including a fissile material ban. Some conference members, including close U.S. allies, have insisted that the forum also negotiate nuclear force reductions and a ban on space-based weapons. “This impasse is the result of efforts in Geneva to link issues that cannot command consensus support to an issue that can: namely FMCT [a fissile material cutoff treaty]. The insistence of many members on pursuing an outmoded and unrealistic Cold War agenda also has contributed to the deadlock,” she said. Israel also reportedly objected in May to the U.S. proposal for a fissile material cutoff treaty at the forum, indicating concern about how the proposal might affect its policy of nuclear ambiguity (see GSN, May 19). Rocca said the continued deadlock over the Conference on Disarmament’s agenda “raises questions as to its continued effectiveness” and that negotiations this year are “critical to the continued existence of the CD as a meaningful international negotiating forum.” Lugar, during a question and answer period, noted that the U.S.-proposed draft fissile material cutoff treaty has been criticized as insufficient, as it lacks a proposed inspections mechanism for verifying treaty compliance. “Some critics of the treaty that we have submitted have suggested it is actually an effort to torpedo negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty,” he said. “That’s absolutely not the case,” Rocca said, adding that the administration determined after a 2004 policy review that compliance with the treaty could not be verified through inspections. Lugar asked Rocca whether there were other treaties the administration would like to negotiate at the conference. Rocca cited an administration proposal to ban the sale or export of antipersonnel landmines that lack self-neutralizing mechanisms that leave them harmless after a set period.
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