Nuclear Negotiations

May 05, 2005

by Robert Nolan

The month-long conference to review the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) held every five years got off to a dubious start this week in New York. Just days before leaders from nearly 190 nations prepared to gather, North Korea test-fired what analysts said was a short range surface-to-ship missile, and later in the week Iran's foreign minister vowed the Islamic Republic would continue its pursuit of nuclear technologies, including enrichment. While North Korea and Iran's disregard for international norms are likely to keep nonproliferation at the center of the agenda, pressure from a group of non-nuclear countries could shift the spotlight to disarmament – much to the chagrin of the U.S., but a legitimate component of the treaty that the review conference is intended to address. Nevertheless, observers fear that despite the widespread acknowledgement of nuclear threats worldwide, this month's talks may yield little fruit as a clear agenda for the review has yet to emerge.

“A Crisis of Compliance”

At the heart of the NPT lies the basic agreement that nuclear-armed countries will work in good faith towards the reduction and eventual elimination of their arsenals, while non-nuclear states refrain from pursuing weapons in exchange for assistance with peaceful, nuclear programs for civilian use. Though it is only natural that upon review of the treaty nuclear “haves” tend to focus on compliance and “have-nots” on disarmament, this fact is especially true today, as curbing proliferation has become a top priority for the U.S. following the attacks of 9/11 and its war against terrorism.

“We will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons,” U.S. President George Bush has repeated on a number of occasions since the attacks, yet over the past three years both North Korea and Iran have both made significant strides towards acquiring nuclear know-how, and in the case of Pyongyang, likely nuclear weapons. It is for this reason, as well as the possibility of a nuclear device falling into the hands of anti-American terrorists, that the U.S. has called for the universal condemnation of countries in pursuit of nuclear weapons, stated or not, and has aimed to strengthen the anti-proliferation regime.

“The conference should condemn North Korea's egregious behavior,” said U.S. delegation leader Stephen Rademaker in remarks to members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and although it has not sought to directly undermine European negotiations with Iran on its nuclear pursuits, U.S. officials have made it clear they believe Iran's intentions are not peaceful, as the Islamic regime claims.

The U.S. has also proposed tighter monitoring of compliance with the NPT, a move that has gained traction from nonproliferation experts as well as those who carry out the job inside the United Nations, though proposals on how to do so differ. While the Bush administration would like to ban so-called dual use equipment from all countries but the U.S. and other select nations, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei have proposed a more multilateral approach that would put nuclear fuel production under the supervision of regional or international bodies, according to the Associated Press.

Also up for debate, according to some, is interpretation of treaty language that grants non-nuclear countries the right to pursue nuclear technologies for peaceful means. Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argue in a Wall Street Journal commentary against those who interpret the treaty's language on such pursuits as an “inalienable right” that is absolute, noting that “if it authorized states to get all they needed to come within days of having a nuclear bomb, perversely it would be no more than a legal cover for proliferation.” Such a right, the two claim, does not exist, “and nuclear fuel-making of the sort Iran is planning to engage in still cannot be safeguarded in any meaningful way.”

“Indeed, if we cannot get others to return to the NPT's original, tougher view of what peaceful nuclear energy means, our current campaign to prevent Iran from going nuclear will not only fail, but will make the rules all but meaningless,” they add.

It is these very rules, however, that some non-nuclear nations feel the nuclear club interprets to their own advantage. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said as much in his dramatic remarks during the first week of the review conference, in which Iran vowed to continue its nuclear pursuits. “It is unacceptable that some intend to limit the access to nuclear technology to an exclusive club of technologically advanced states under the pretext of nonproliferation,” Kharrazi said.

Selective Disarmament

While Iranian rhetoric is likely to continue within the framework of negotiations with European nations, it is widespread international support for disarmament and the Bush administration's own nuclear policies that are more likely to sidetrack U.S. efforts to make proliferation the centerpiece of the NPT review this month. While unprecedented efforts have been made to cut nuclear arsenals over the past decade, the United States still has roughly 4,500 nuclear warheads deployed, while Russia is reported to have approximately 3,800. Both nations agreed in 2001 to cut the number to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012, but such figures do not necessarily include reserves.

“The unique status of the nuclear-weapon states also entails a unique responsibility, and they must do more, including but not limited to further reductions in their arsenals and pursuing arms control agreements that entail not just dismantlement, but irreversibility,” wrote Kofi Annan in a recent report, reminding signatories of their duties under the NPT. Representatives of a group of countries that have renounced nuclear weapons, including Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand and South Africa, have also expressed concern over the rate of disarmament called for by the treaty, and stress the linkage between proliferation and disarmament.

“For our part, we remain concerned about their unsatisfactory progress,” foreign ministers from the coalition write in the International Herald Tribune. “At the review conference five years ago, the nuclear-weapon states made an ‘unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.' This goal is all the more important in a world in which terrorists seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the nuclear-weapon states should acknowledge that disarmament and nonproliferation are mutually reinforcing processes: What does not exist cannot proliferate.”

Others, including former U.S. officials, who seek to bolster disarmament point to the American withdrawal from the comprehensive test ban treaty and its pursuit of new nuclear weapons technologies as explicit efforts to undermine the NPT. “The United States is the major culprit in this erosion of the NPT,” former President Jimmy Carter wrote this week in the International Herald Tribune. “While claiming to be protecting the world from proliferation threats in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea, American leaders not only have abandoned existing treaty restraints but also have asserted plans to test and develop new weapons, including antiballistic missiles, the earth-penetrating "bunker buster" and perhaps some new 'small' bombs.”

Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara also voiced concern over current U.S. nuclear policies, outlined in President Bush's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, which he writes in Foreign Policy Magazine, “deserve serious public scrutiny.” While McNamara highlights the importance of all parties to participate in negotiations on disarmament, he asserts the wider problem is that neither “the Bush administration, the congress, the American people, nor the people of other nations have debated the merits of alternative, long-range nuclear weapons policies for their countries or the world. They have not examined the military utility of the weapons; the risk of inadvertent or accidental use; the moral and legal considerations relating to the use or threat of use of the weapons; or the impact of current policies on proliferation,” adding that, “Such debates are long overdue.”

While the ongoing debate over how to deal specifically with Iran and North Korea and diplomatic tug of war between advocates of nonproliferation and disarmament will likely continue to bog down the 2005 NPT review session, many find wisdom in the simple remarks made by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the opening of the conference.

“Ultimately,” Annan remarked, “the only way to guarantee that they will never be used is for our world to be free of such weapons.”

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