01 June 2010

NPT Review Conference Affirms Obama’s Nonproliferation Agenda

U.S. to co-sponsor proposed 2012 conference on WMD-free Mideast

By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington — U.S. officials lauded the agreement resulting from the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York as furthering President Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons where all countries can enjoy access to peaceful nuclear energy.

“The NPT must be at the center of our global efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world, while pursuing the ultimate goal of a world without them,” President Obama said in a May 28 statement.

The 28-page agreement, which was approved by all 189 participating countries after four weeks of discussions, “includes balanced and practical steps that will advance nonproliferation, nuclear disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, which are critical pillars of the global nonproliferation regime,” Obama said.

The president first outlined his vision of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles in an April 5, 2009 speech in Prague. The United States has since taken several steps in support of that goal.

• On September 24, 2009, under President Obama’s chairmanship, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1887, which sets a framework to guide nations in halting the spread of nuclear weapons and reducing global nuclear dangers.

• On April 6, President Obama unveiled a revised Nuclear Posture Review that reduces the role of nuclear weapons in the overall U.S. national security strategy, maintains the U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing, and pledges not to use nuclear weapons on nations that are in compliance with the NPT and their nuclear nonproliferation obligations.

• The United States and Russia signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on April 8, under which both countries agree to reduce their nuclear weapon stockpiles by 30 percent.

• President Obama hosted the April 12–13 Nuclear Security Summit, which embraced the goal of preventing nuclear terrorism by securing all of the world’s vulnerable nuclear materials within four years.

• To promote nuclear transparency and strengthen global arms control, the United States revealed that it has 5,113 operational warheads in its nuclear arsenal on May 3, coinciding with the opening of the NPT Review Conference.

The review conference is held every five years and is aimed at strengthening the “three pillars” of the 1970 treaty by which nations without nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them, nuclear-armed countries agree to move toward their elimination, and all countries are given the right to develop peaceful nuclear energy.

President Obama said the agreement resulting from the May 3–28 discussions “reaffirms many aspects of the agenda that I laid out in Prague, and which we have pursued together with other nations over the last year, and underscores that those nations that refuse to abide by their international obligations must be held accountable.”

In her closing statement at the conference May 28, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher described the agreement’s action plan as “forward-looking and balanced.”

Along with recognizing steps that the United States and other countries have taken to advance nuclear disarmament, the document encourages “the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the urgent need to get on with long-delayed talks on a fissile material cutoff treaty.”

It also affirms enhanced nuclear safeguards that are verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as called for under the treaty’s Additional Protocol. The protocol “represent[s] the enhanced standard” for verifying NPT compliance and is essential for the IAEA’s efforts to carry out its international safeguards responsibilities, Tauscher said.

The agreement emphasizes that “peaceful uses of nuclear energy should be made available to all parties in conformity with the NPT’s nonproliferation provisions, and recognizes the importance of multilateral mechanisms for assurance of nuclear supply and related fuel-cycle services,” Tauscher said.

Countries that violate the NPT and then withdraw from the treaty to avoid punishment will be held accountable for those violations, she said.

The United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China, who constitute the five leading nuclear powers, committed to speed up their efforts to reduce their nuclear arsenals and reduce the importance of nuclear weapons in their security strategies. The agreement said all five would report their progress on these efforts in 2014, ahead of the next NPT Review Conference in 2015. The State Department released a May 28 fact sheet with further details on the final agreement.

CONFERENCE ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS-FREE MIDDLE EAST

The final conference document calls for convening a conference in 2012 to discuss establishing the Middle East as a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. The United States has previously indicated its support for such a zone, but the Obama administration has said it believes that a comprehensive peace is a necessary precursor to such a conference, as well as the need for all countries in the region to be fully compliant with their arms control and nonproliferation obligations.

In a May 28 statement, President Obama’s national security advisor, General James Jones, said a WMD-free Middle East is “a long-term goal,” and said the United States would co-sponsor the conference with the United Kingdom, Russia and the U.N. secretary-general.

For the conference to be effective, Jones said, all countries in the region must participate, and the conference’s agenda must include regional security issues, verification and compliance, and all categories of WMD as well as their delivery systems.

“In addition, we will insist that the conference operate only by consensus by the regional countries, to include agreement on any possible further discussions or follow-up actions, which will only take place with the consent of all the regional countries,” he said.

Jones said the United States deplored the decision to single out Israel in the NPT document’s Middle East section while failing to mention Iran or its continued violations of the NPT and U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Iran “poses the greatest threat of nuclear proliferation in the region and to the integrity of the NPT,” Jones said.

The United States remains committed to Israel’s security, he said, and the decision to single Israel out in the document reduces the prospects of all key states participating in the conference. Those prospects are “now in doubt and will remain so until all are assured” that the conference can operate in an “unbiased and constructive way,” Jones said.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)