Nuclear treaty talks on brink of failure: diplomats

Talks on shoring up the global anti-nuclear arms treaty were on the edge of failure on Friday as the US and its allies clashed with Egypt over a push to pressure Israel to scrap any atom bombs it may possess.

For a month the 189 signatories of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty have been meeting in New York in hopes of agreeing on a plan to shore up the troubled pact, which analysts say has been hit by Iran’s and North Korea’s atomic programs and failure by the nuclear powers to disarm.

The latest draft of a final declaration for the NPT review conference calls for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to organise a meeting of all Middle Eastern states in 2012 on how to make the region free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as demanded by a 1995 NPT resolution.

The creation of a WMD-free zone would eventually force Israel to abandon any atomic bombs it has. The Jewish state, which like nuclear-armed India and Pakistan never signed the NPT, is presumed to have a sizable nuclear arsenal but neither confirms nor denies it. Israel is not participating in the NPT meeting.

The document has also asked Pakistan and India to join the NPT and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) as non-nuclear weapon states, “promptly and without conditions,” adding that Pakistan and India should also suspend nuclear testing.

The five permanent UN Security Council members and a group of Arab states led by Egypt are close to a deal that would make the 2012 conference happen, delegates say. But the two sides have reached an impasse on the question of whether Israel should be named in the declaration as a problem state.

The Egyptians insist the declaration must state explicitly that Israel should join the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state, but the Americans are refusing, diplomats said.

Published in the Express Tribune, May 29th, 2010.