Iran challenge hits meeting on ailing nuclear treaty
1 May 2007
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By Mark Heinrich
VIENNA (Reuters) - A meeting on how to rescue the faltering nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ran into early difficulty on Monday when Iran balked at plans to focus on non-compliance issues, fearing it would be singled out.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier said the NPT was suffering a “crisis of confidence” due to a lack of universal respect for provisions against the spread of nuclear fuel production technology — an allusion to Iran and North Korea.
Analysts say the NPT has been gravely wounded by North Korea’s nuclear test in 2006, after bolting the NPT, and Iran’s bid to enrich uranium in defiance of U.N. resolutions demanding that it stop due to suspicions of a covert quest for atom bombs.
Iran insists its uranium enrichment program is only to generate electricity, and an envoy interrupted the NPT review meeting on Monday to contest the tentatively agreed agenda.
He said a line citing the need to consider “approaches and measures to realize its (NPT) purpose, reaffirming the need for full compliance”, should be deleted so the agenda would echo that of a 2005 NPT review conference.
“We don’t want a certain direction given to the agenda. This item could create disputes by creating too much focus on one country,” Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters.
Germany, on behalf of the European Union, and Canada told the gathering of 189 NPT members that Iran’s maneuver risked procedural deadlock pre-empting urgent debate on substance as occurred at the 2005 conference.
They said the Vienna meeting chairman, Japan, had ensured the new agenda would allow any nation including Iran to have its say on any topic, so there were no grounds for blocking it.
POLITICISED AGENDA BATTLE
Diplomats said Iran was trying to parry a U.S. move to concentrate attention on Tehran’s past failure to report nuclear research to U.N. inspectors and continued evasion of U.N. inquiries as lessons for how the NPT should be beefed up.
“Iran fears getting beaten up in the closed-door sessions that will follow the public debate on Monday and Tuesday,” said a diplomat who helped organize the NPT preparatory gathering.
The gathering, which runs to May 11, is to help set priorities for the next, full decision-making conference in 2010.
A senior EU diplomat said Iran appeared isolated because the agenda, although it must gain a consensus at Tuesday’s session, resulted from months of broad consultations by Japan.
“Everyone wants to avoid a repeat of the 2005 impasse. What Iran is doing is posturing that won’t change anything (politically) for them,” the diplomat said.
The NPT binds members without nuclear bombs not to acquire them via diversions of peaceful nuclear energy know-how.
It also commits the original five nuclear weapons powers from the post-World War Two era to phase out their arsenals and guarantees the right of all members to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Another NPT problem predating the North Korea and Iran crises is the perception of nuclear “have nots” that nuclear “haves” have impeded access to atomic energy for development while stalling on disarmament obligations.
Washington said the most acute threat to the NPT was the evasion of provisions against the spread of enrichment know-how.
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