Nuclear powers and non-nuclear-weapon states clashed on Wednesday over how to get rid of atomic arms, in the final days of a UN conference on improving the world’s non-proliferation regime.
The rift between non-aligned and nuclear weapon states came as a landmark, month-long review of the 189-nation Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) headed towards it closing tomorrow at UN headquarters in New York.
Closed-door meetings were continuing late on Wednesday.
“Work is taking place in capitals and in New York,” a Western diplomat said, adding that “the conference isn’t over yet.”
Another diplomat said that despite the standoff, “if there is political will, anything is possible.”
Success would be adopting a draft final statement which includes action plans on the NPT’s three main areas — disarmament, verifying that nations are not secretly developing the bomb and promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
At stake is reaffirming the validity of the NPT treaty which has since 1970 set the global agenda for fighting the spread of nuclear weapons.
Non-aligned states have suggested about 200 amendments to the 28-page draft, particularly to get nuclear weapon states to accept the principle of putting a time limit on achieving disarmament, diplomats said.
Nuclear powers Britain, China, France, Russia and the US reject this.
The non-aligned movement (NAM), led by Egypt, proposed an amendment on Wednesday to add the phrase “within a specified framework of time” to the conference agreeing in the draft text on an “action plan on nuclear disarmament which includes concrete steps for the total elimination of nuclear weapons,” a diplomat said.
He said Russian delegate Anatoly Antonov “made quite a strong statement to the NPT calling on the NAM to be more realistic.”
Antonov said a nuclear weapons convention, which would set a specific date, and artificial timelines for destroying nuclear weapons were unacceptable, the diplomat said.
Antonov asked the NAM to “think again on these issues,” the diplomat said.
NAM states reacted strongly, with South Africa saying that non-aligned positions “shouldn’t be diminished but were the product of careful deliberation,” the diplomat said.
The NPT is in crisis as non-nuclear-weapon states complain that weapon states have not fulfilled their treaty promise to move towards disarmament and that verification crackdowns, such as on Iran, put their right to peaceful nuclear technology at risk.
The previous NPT review, in 2005, failed to even agree on a final document.
The review in 2000, they are held every five years, approved steps to disarmament.
The 1995 meeting indefinitely extended the treaty and called for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, a promise the NAM now wants kept.
US President Barack Obama has pursued an ambitious non-proliferation agenda as part of his policy of favoring multilateral diplomacy over the confrontation tactics of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Diplomats said this has led to an improved atmosphere at the NPT conference over the one in 2005.
Western officials are betting that countries will feel pressure not to be the ones who caused this conference to fail.
The conference’s most contentious issue, the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, was being handled on Wednesday by a small group on the sidelines of the conference and in capitals, diplomats said.
The US and Egypt are spearheading talks between nuclear powers and non-aligneds to find a way forward on this matter.
Israel opposes a zone until there is peace in the Middle East but might agree to a non-binding conference, diplomats said.
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