A key UN conference that failed to break ground on dealing with the spread of nuclear weapons showed how much the world has changed since the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty came into effect in 1970.
Thirty-five years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the treaty "set into place one of the most important security bargains of all time, states without nuclear weapons pledged not to acquire them while nuclear-armed states committed to eventually give them up," the Washington-based Arms Control Association said in a booklet on the conference.
This neat bargain, which some have called the most successful treaty of all time for keeping the number of nuclear weapons states from being in the dozens, has been shaken in past years with reports of a new wave of proliferation.
North Korea allegedly has the bomb, the US charges that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons and the discovery of transnational smuggling of nuclear materials and technology has raised fears of terrorists acquiring atomic weapons of mass destruction.
In such a post-Cold-War, post-September 11 world, the 188-nation treaty's contract of "exchanging disarmament against non-proliferation is a false equation. We must seize the reality that the main challenge today is monitoring the peaceful use of nuclear energy" as such use can be turned to weapons purposes, a European diplomat told reporters.
This was the issue which dominated the conference at UN headquarters in New York from May 2 until Friday and eventually paralyzed hope of making any progress since points of view were so divergent.
The US, one of five nuclear weapons states that have signed the treaty, insisted on the need to focus on cracking down on suspicious nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran, as well as the threat of international terrorists getting their hand on the bomb.
Iran meanwhile won widespread support from non-aligned countries in demanding that its right to peaceful atomic activities be recognized, despite US charges that Tehran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.
And the US resisted being bound by disarmament promises made at previous review conferences in 1995 and 2000 but non-aligned nations said nuclear weapon states were not living up to their obligations and that disarmament remained as important as fighting non-proliferation according to the treaty.
In addition, in an intransigence that surprised diplomats here, Egypt blocked any progress after its demands that Israel be sanctioned for possessing nuclear weapons and not signing the treaty were rejected.
"People thought they could fix things with business as usual" but non-proliferation problems "can only be resolved when top policy people in government focus on them," UN nuclear chief ElBaradei said, urging world leaders to consider the matter at a UN summit in September.
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