U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blincoln delivers a speech at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on the 1st (local time). AP Yonhap News
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended without a result statement amid opposition from Russia.
The AP and TAS News reported on the 26th (local time), the last day of the 10th evaluation meeting, that a long meeting of member countries continued over the draft result, but there was no unanimous agreement in the end.
“Unfortunately, there has been no agreement on this document,” said Igor Vishnevetsky, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Office of Nonproliferation and Arms Control.
Approval from all 191 NPT member states is required for the results to be adopted.
Deputy Director Vishinevetsky argued that many countries, as well as Russia, did not agree on many issues in the draft.
However, Spain’s EFE news agency reported that countries other than Russia were willing to accept the draft decision.
Russia’s objection is said to be due to provisions relating to Ukraine’s Zaporiza nuclear power plant.
The draft circulated at this meeting is 36 pages long. The draft also criticized Russia for taking over Europe’s largest Zaporiza nuclear power plant following the invasion of Ukraine and urged the return of the Zaporiza nuclear power plant to Ukraine.
The Tass news agency said that following discussions regarding the Zaporiza nuclear power plant, Russia opposed the agreement on the outcome.
“Russia is the reason we didn’t reach an agreement today,” Adam Sheinman, the US special representative for non-proliferation, told the United Nations on the same day.
“The last minute modifications that Russia pursued were not frivolous,” he said.
Gustavo Slaubinen, chairman of the NPT evaluation meeting, said at the end of the meeting that there was no consensus on the key content.
The conference started on the 1st of this month and was held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York until today.
This is the second time the outcome of the evaluation meeting has not been adopted. At the recent 2015 meeting, there was a lot of disagreement over the idea of creating a WMD-free zone in the Middle East, so no agreement might be reached.
The NPT is a treaty that underlies the international community’s commitment to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. An evaluation meeting is held once every five years to solidify this resolution, review its implementation, and discuss new issues.
The evaluation meeting, which was originally scheduled to be held in 2020, was postponed due to the spread of COVID-19 and was held for the first time in seven years.
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