Global Security Newswire

Nations at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference yesterday received a draft proposal aimed at strengthening the regime against atomic weapons, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 25).

The document combines the work of three conference panels that separately addressed the key elements of the 189-member pact -- nonproliferation, disarmament and the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

The 29-page paper, issued by conference President Libran Cabactulan of the Philippines, would seek a 2012 meeting of Middle Eastern states to begin talks on making the region a WMD-free zone.

Specifically, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would organize “an initial conference in 2012, to be attended by all states of the Middle East, leading to the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction, on the basis of arrangements freely arricvd at by the states of the region," according to the document.

Treaty states at the 1995 review conference signed off on the Middle Eastern zone, but "little progress has been achieved" since then in bringing it into existence, the draft declaration states. Egypt has led a renewed push at this session on the matter, calling for a conference in 2011.

Cabactulan's plan would also establish a special coordinator position at the United Nations to help organize the event.

Israel is the only Middle Eastern state believed to hold nuclear weapons, though it refuses to confirm or deny the stockpile's existence. It has linked willingness to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or to consider a nuclear weapon-free zone to success in the Middle East peace process.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the beginning of the conference said the Obama administration was "prepared to support practical measures for moving toward" the WMD-free zone goal, but later said ongoing regional conflicts meant its time had not yet come, AP reported. Washington is believed to have discussed the matter with both Cairo and Jerusalem.

Clearly addressing Israel, the draft proposal "calls on all states in the Middle East that have not yet done so to accede to the treaty as non-nuclear weapon states so as to achieve its universality at an early date.”

It also calls on India and Pakistan -- which both hold nuclear arsenals outside of the treaty -- to join the pact “and to place all their nuclear facilities under comprehensive (International Atomic Energy) Agency safeguards without conditions and promptly.”

The document further requests that former NPT member North Korea rejoin the nonproliferation regime "at an early date" and meet its denuclearization obligations established in a 2005 agreement with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Khaleej Times, May 26).

The document makes no direct reference to Iran or Western suspicions that it is seeking a nuclear-weapon capability, Reuters reported. The closest the paper comes to addressing the matter is in a statement of concern "with cases of noncompliance of the treaty by states parties."

Envoys from Tehran had argued that any reference to Iran in the document should be accompanied by inclusion of the United States and other nations for "serious noncompliance with Article 1 of the treaty," according to Ray Acheson of the disarmament organization Reaching Critical Will. The article demands that Washington and the other formal nuclear powers -- China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom -- refrain from passing nuclear-weapon technology to other states (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, May 25).

Cabactulan said he hoped the draft plan would move the conference toward compromise rather than discord in its final days, Agence France-Presse reported.

"I feel that this is the spirit of what we're trying to achieve," he said yesterday between full meetings of conference participants.

His proposed document offers no specific schedules for the nuclear powers to give up their arsenals, declaring only that "the final phase of the nuclear disarmament process and other related measures should be pursued within a legal framework with specified time lines."

The monthlong conference is scheduled to end Friday (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 25).

The conference makes its decisions by consensus, though a mechanism exists that would allow for approval of a final statement by a two-thirds "super-majority" vote.

Key to the final outcome would be Arab nations' readiness to accept compromises on the WMD-free zone conference proposal, according to Western diplomats. It would be up to Arab states to work with the permanent members of the Security Council to prepare the wording on the matter, sources told Reuters.

"If we can't get a Middle East deal, there will be no outcome document and we'll have another failure," a Western delegate said, referring to the 2005 conference that ended without a consensus final document. "The Arabs have to decide whether they want something (on a WMD-free zone) Israel can participate in, or if they just want to beat up on Israel" (Charbonneau, Reuters).