The international community must not turn away from facing the threat posed by nuclear weapons as it deals with the economic meltdown and other crises, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday (see GSN, April 21).
(May. 5) -
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon yesterday urged governments to continue addressing nuclear threats (Abid Katib/Getty Images).
"Nuclear weapons remain an apocalyptic threat," Ban said at the United Nations during a preparatory meeting for the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference. "We cannot afford to place disarmament and nonproliferation on a back burner."
Review conferences are conducted every five years to allow NPT nations to assess the state of nonproliferation and consider strategies for strengthening the pact. The 2005 session ended without any agreement, a failure Ban said occurred because ""for too long, the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agenda has been stagnating in a Cold War mentality," Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, May 31, 2005).
Ban said, though, that he was "particularly encouraged" by the agreement between Russia and the United States to seek further reductions to their nuclear arsenals under a follow-up pact to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires in December (see GSN, April 28).
The global community must "end the stalemate that has marked the international disarmament machinery for too long," Ban said. "To strengthen the NPT regime, it is essential that the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty enters into force without further delay, and that the Conference on Disarmament begins negotiations on a verifiable fissile material treaty," he said (see GSN, April 22).
He said he hoped that delegates during the two-week meeting could offer procedural guidance and solid recommendations for the 2010 session (Agence France-Presse/Middle East Online, May 4).
Diplomats expressed cautious optimism about the U.S.-Russian negotiations and President Barack Obama's stated goal of a world without nuclear weapons, the Associated Press reported.
"We hope the two countries will further reduce their nuclear arsenals in a verifiable and irreversible manner," said Chinese arms control and disarmament chief Cheng Jingye. A new pact prohibiting space weapons is needed "at an early date," he added.
Cuban Ambassador Abelardo Moreno also praised the moves by Moscow and Washington. "Concrete steps towards total elimination of nuclear weapons by nuclear weapons states should follow in an irreversible, verifiable and transparent manner," said Moreno, whose nation presently leads the 118-state Nonaligned Movement (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 4).
Ban also urged North Korea to resume multilateral negotiations aimed at dismantling its nuclear arsenal and related operations, AFP reported. The six-party talks are "the best mechanism to achieve the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner," said Ban, former South Korean foreign minister.
Talks between Pyongyang and five nations -- China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States -- produced a 2007 denuclearization agreement that North Korea began to implement. However, the process stalled late last year and seemingly collapsed in the wake of the Stalinist state's April 5 rocket test, which the United States and allied nations believe was a test of long-range missile technology (see GSN, April 14).
In the wake of a U.N. Security Council statement condemning the launch, North Korea said it was through with the talks, ejected all U.S. and U.N. monitors and said it had resumed plutonium processing at its Yongbyon nuclear complex (Agence France-Presse, May 4).
Pak Tok Hun, deputy North Korean ambassador to the United Nations, told Reuters yesterday that "we will never return to the six-party talks."
"As long as they are trying to infringe on our sovereignty, we don't see any need, any necessity to participate in the six-party talks," he said.
"The most important thing is that they should change their hostile policy toward my country," Pak added. "This is the main issue" (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters I/Washington Post, May 4).
Iran used its presentation at the preparatory session to criticize "continuous nuclear cooperation" between longtime foe Israel and Western nations, Reuters reported.
"Continuous nuclear cooperation of the United States, U.K. and France with the Zionist regime is a total disregard with the obligations under the treaty ... and a source of real concern for the international community, especially the parties to the treaty in the Middle East," said Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Hosseini.
Israel is widely believed to possess a nuclear arsenal, though it has never acknowledged it in public. The United States and other Western nations have concerns about the intent of Iran's nuclear activities, which the Middle Eastern state says are strictly civilian in nature (see GSN, May 4).
Hosseini also charged that the U.S. civilian nuclear trade deal with India -- which, like Israel, is not a treaty state -- "severely damaged the NPT" and that the nuclear-weapon states have "accelerated the nuclear arms race" by failing to relinquish their arsenals under the treaty (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters II/Washington Post, May 4).
Ban said Iranian leaders should "continue their cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) with a view to demonstrate the entirely peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," AFP reported (Agence France-Presse, May 4).