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Non-nuclear states want nuclear powers to move on disarmament |
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April 24, 2000 UNITED NATIONS, APR 23 (AP) - Countries without nuclear weapons have put the United States and other nuclear powers on notice that they want an unequivocal commitment to total nuclear disarmament at a major conference starting Monday.
Thirty years after the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty came into force, many signatories who have disavowed nuclear weapons are frustrated that the treaty's goal of a nuclear weapons-free world appears to be slipping further and further away - even with Russia's ratification of two key nuclear agreements last week.
When 187 nations gather Monday for a four-week conference to review the treaty's provisions, the 182 non-nuclear states will be casting a highly critical eye at the five nuclear powers: the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will be among the first speakers Monday and is likely to defend Washington's record.
"Some countries have the quite unrealistic notion that disarmament is something that happens overnight," said State Department spokesman James P. Rubin. "The fact is that the United States has led the way among the nuclear powers in trying to reverse the nuclear arms race."
The NPT treaty, which went into force in 1970, represented a bargain between the nuclear "haves" and "have-nots." In return for the non-nuclear states' agreement not to acquire nuclear weapons, the treaty committed nuclear weapon states "to pursue in good faith negotiations on effective measures relating to ... nuclear disarmament."
In 1995, when the treaty's 25-year term was set to expire, the United States led the successful campaign to extend the treaty indefinitely, promising "systematic and progressive efforts" toward disarmament and a global ban on nuclear tests.
But there is widespread feeling among non-nuclear weapon states that the efforts haven't gone far enough and that the spread of the weapons has in fact increased.
Since the 1995 conference, India and Pakistan have become official nuclear states after conducting rival nuclear tests in May 1998.
In addition, the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament, the main disarmament forum, has deadlocked on a new disarmament agenda. There has been no progress on a treaty to cut off production of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium. And 10 years after the Cold War, thousands of U.S. and Russian warheads remain on "hair-trigger" alert.
Global disarmament negotiations on a host of issues were virtually gridlocked until the Russian Duma ratified the long-delayed START II treaty to cut nuclear arsenals last week. On Friday, the Duma ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. Senate refused to ratify last year.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov is sure to highlight the landmark votes when he addresses the conference on Tuesday.
Russia hopes the two votes will generate support for its drive to stop the United States from building a nuclear missile defense system - an issue that is likely to feature prominently in the conference. Critics say the U.S. system would trigger a new arms race.
The recent Russian action "helps to relieve some of the gloom surrounding some of this conference, and will help to answer some of the criticism with regard to nuclear disarmament," said U.N.
Undersecretary-General for Disarmament Jayantha Dhanapala. Some of that criticism is expected to come from a group of moderate countries called the New Agenda Coalition which has successfully lobbied the U.N. General Assembly to approve a resolution on steps toward a nuclear weapon-free world for the past two years.
The coalition, which consists of South Africa, Brazil, Ireland, Egypt, New Zealand, Mexico and Sweden, has demanded that nuclear-weapon states "make an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and to engage without delay in an accelerated process of negotiations, thus achieving nuclear disarmament."
Nearly 350 grassroots organizations and 42 lawmakers from Britain, Belgium, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and the European Parliament have written to all NPT signatories making similar demands.
Norman Wulf, the head of the U.S. delegation, pointed to a statement from President Bill Clinton in March saying the United States was committed to the "ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons."
The president added, however, that "achieving this goal will be neither easy nor rapid."
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