U.N. powers say North Korea, Iran ‘serious’ nuke threats

GENEVA — Ahead of a round of global nuclear talks, five major powers labeled North Korea and Iran as “serious challenges” to the world’s nuclear security Friday, citing their repeated defiance of U.N. sanctions.

Senior diplomats with the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members singled out North Korea’s nuclear test in February and Iran’s “continued pursuit of certain nuclear activities” as among the biggest threats to the 1970 Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty, the world’s most important pact on preventing the spread of nuclear arms.

A joint statement by Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States also called for establishing the Middle East as a zone free of nuclear weapons.

The statement preceded two weeks of talks in Geneva to prepare for a broad review of the NPT, which has been signed by 190 nations and is credited with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to dozens of nations in the 43 years since it entered into force. Iran is a member, but North Korea — along with India, Pakistan and Israel — are not.

The treaty commits nations without nuclear weapons to refrain from acquiring them. Those with them commit to take steps toward their elimination. All who sign agree that everyone has a right to develop peaceful nuclear energy.

Nations meet every five years to review the treaty and try to find new approaches to old problems. The next such review will be in 2015, and preparatory meetings like the one in Geneva draw on increasing cooperation between the Security Council’s permanent members, said Rose Gottemoeller, acting U. S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

“Between now and the review conference you will see increasing payoff, I think,” she said.

North Korea has been sustained by Chinese food and fuel, and by growing Chinese trade and investment. But after North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un’s February nuclear test, China signed onto the toughest U. N. sanctions yet on Pyongyang.