Virus delays review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
UNITED NATIONS – The 191 parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty postponed a conference to review its implementation because of the coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations said.
The treaty is considered the cornerstone of global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. The parties hold a major conference every five years to discuss how it’s working. The meeting had been scheduled for April 27May 22 in New York.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the review conference will be held “as soon as the circumstances permit, but no later than April 2021.”
The U.N. said last week that the conference was likely to be postponed, but the conference president-designate, Ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen of Argentina, wanted to consult governments that are parties to the treaty.
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which reached its 50th anniversary March 5, is credited with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to dozens of nations. It has succeeded through a grand global bargain: Nations without nuclear weapons committed not to acquire them; those with them committed to move toward their elimination; and all endorsed everyone’s right to develop peaceful nuclear energy.
The 191 state parties include every nation except India, Pakistan and North Korea, which possess nuclear weapons, and Israel, which is believed to be a nuclear power but has never acknowledged it.
Members try to agree on new approaches to problems, not by updating the treaty, which is difficult, but by trying to adopt a consensus final document calling for steps outside the treaty to advance its goals.
U.N. disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu warned earlier this month that the specter of an unbridled nuclear arms race is threatening the world for the first time since the 1970s, the height of the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union.
She didn’t name any countries but she was clearly referring to the U.S. and Russia, and possibly China, when she told the U.N. Security Council that “relationships between states – especially nuclear-weapon states – are fractured.”