A Missed Nonproliferation Opportunity
May 24th, 2015
Last week the latest quinquennial review conference for the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) ended as a failure, without
issuing a formal statement or report. The single biggest snag concerned
whether to call for the convening of a conference on a Middle Eastern
nuclear weapons free zone (MENWFZ). Fingers of blame were pointed in
various directions, including at Egypt for pushing some procedural changes
regarding the convening of such a conference that some other
delegations regarded as needless complications. But the procedural
issues were not much of an obstacle and could have been resolved. The
more fundamental roadblock was the same one that has been decisive every
time the subject of a MENWFZ has come up. Israel doesn't like the idea,
and the United States, acting as Israel's lawyer (Israel itself, not
being a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, was only an
observer and not a full participant in the review conference), blocked approval of the draft statement that was on the table.
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