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Monday, May 03, 2010
NPT nations gather to ‘recommit vows’ to treaty
* Focus to be on non-proliferation, disarmament
* Israel, India and Pakistan invited without the right to speakUNITED NATIONS: Some 150 countries meet here from today (Monday) onwards to review global efforts to check the spread of nuclear weapons, with the unresolved Iranian nuclear crisis looming large in the background.
The presence of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, expected to be the first to speak at the opening session, ensures sharp words will fly over Tehran’s nuclear programme and Israel’s secret bombs, as well as over treaty outsider North Korea and the huge US and Russian nuclear arsenals.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who is also to address the conference, has said if Ahmadinejad “brings some good constructive proposal in resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, that would be helpful”.
Treaty members – every nation but India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – gather every five years to review how it is working and agree on new approaches to problems. They do that not by updating the treaty, but by trying to adopt a consensus final document calling for steps outside the treaty to advance its goals.
Focus: The focus in more than three weeks of discussions will be on the treaty’s three main pillars: non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful use of nuclear energy.
But since the treaty came into force in 1970, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have all acquired nuclear weapons capability. A total of 190 countries have signed the treaty, including North Korea, which however withdrew in 2003.
Israel, India and Pakistan have been invited at the conference, albeit without the right to speak, but none have said whether they will attend.
The president-elect of this year’s conference, Ambassador Libran Cabactulan of the Philippines, said on Thursday all the states’ parties could bring their views to the table.
The meeting, he added, should serve as “a marketplace of ideas (where) the best ideas or the right ideas must prevail”.
Key issues facing NPT signatories include how to make the treaty universal, how to prevent non-state actors from acquiring nuclear weapons, how to improve monitoring of nuclear programs and advance the peaceful and safe use of nuclear energy. afp
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk