From the beginning of May until the end of the month, delegates from 188 countries met to review the progress made during the past five years on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The conference ended with no agreement on new steps to combat the danger of a nuclear holocaust.
From the onset of the deliberations there has been a clear Egyptian stand that also happened to reflect the positions of the majority of Arab countries.
The Egyptians called for discussing President Hosni Mubarak’s initiative aimed at ridding the Middle East of all weapons of mass destruction. The United States and a number of European countries that do not want Israel subjected to the conditions set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have already rejected the demand. They also want Israel to remain a non-signatory of NPT.
We should recall here how the American delegate at the IAEA opposed any attempt by the agency to inspect Israel’s nuclear facilities declaring any such move an intervention in the internal affairs of an independent state.
Egypt called for the universality of the treaty and demanded that Israel accede without delay to the NPT and place all of its nuclear activities under full-scope safeguards. These demands are important steps toward enforcing the resolutions of the last two conferences held in 1995 and 2000.
Egypt, together with Sweden, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico, pushed to make nuclear disarmament a world priority and for the right of all countries to benefit from the peaceful use of nuclear energy as stated in the treaty.
Because of this position Israel launched a media campaign against Egypt accusing Cairo of acquiring nuclear weapons and of having contacts with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb and of maintaining strong ties with North Korea in the area of ballistic missies.
Israel’s tendentious campaign is designed to deflect the world attention from the Jewish state’s continuous refusal to sign the NPT and its plans to operate its nuclear reactor at Demona in the Negev desert close to its old reactor that is posing a real threat to the whole region including Israel itself.
Unfortunately, France and Russia have both played a part in the construction of Israel’s new reactor which costs half a billion dollar secured from American Jews and American administration. IAEA experts say the reactor is a manifestation of Israel nuclear ambitions although Israeli officials insist that it is all for generating electrical power.
This is just another of Israeli lies. When American intelligence sought to discover the true identity of Demona reactor, David Ben Gurion said it was a textile factory of a special nature. He banned journalists from visiting the site and imposed a security ban around the place that prevented the CIA from accessing the site.
Although previous NPT conferences have adopted a number of important resolutions, the last one failed to take any positive steps and was characterized by discord. The delegates tried, but failed to reach agreement on three important aspects of the NPT: Disarmament, verification of safeguards on national nuclear programs and the peaceful use of atomic energy. In the event delegates left the conference before the end of its last session on May 27.
Sergio Duarte, the Brazilian delegate and president of the 2005 NPT Review Conference said although the monthlong conference had accomplished very little in terms of results, agreements or final decisions, there had nevertheless been some progress “in the way issues were discussed and the interest that delegations had shown in those discussions and…documents presented.”
The failure of the conference can be attributed to a number of factors, the first being the inability of the revision committees to arrive at an agreement or even consensus over any of the contentious issues.
Also, a member of a Washington-based arms control committee admitted that the United States was against a discussion on disarmament. Instead it insisted on turning the conference into a platform for discussing the fight against terrorism and imposing a punitive action against what it calls rogue states: North Korea, Iran and Syria.
The failure prompted analysts to say that the NPT is incapable of protecting the world, and in particular forcing the five permanent members of the Security Council and Israel, India and Pakistan to give up their nuclear arsenal.
The world is living under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. We will be safe only when nuclear powers decide to get rid of their weapons. Which is very unlikely.
