The NPT Review Conference's Focus on a Nuclear Free Middle East
Sarah | May 27, 2010 |
1 As the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT RevCon) comes to a close in New York, the call for a ban on nuclear weapons and other WMD in the Middle East has come back into the fore as a top issue. Nuclear Weapons Free Zones (NWFZs), which exist in Latin America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central Asia, are zones in which countries commit themselves to not acquire, manufacture, test, or possess nuclear weapons. Article VII of the NPT affirms the rights of countries to establish such zones. A NWFZ in the Middle East has been on the NPT agenda since the treaty’s entry into force in 1970. Since the 1995 NPT RevCon, the goal has been more adamantly pursued by Egypt, but still to no visible avail.
Nevertheless, the start of this year’s NPT RevCon saw the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China all voice unequivocal support for the initiative— with ample support from states in the region too. The Arab Group has stated that failing to achieve it would be a failure of the NPT as a whole. While some view a NWFZ in the Middle East as a lofty, far-off, or even impossible goal, there is no denying the worth it would have.
The implications of the initiative are clear. Israel, not just Iran, would have to foreswear nuclear weapons.
Israel’s program is controversial for numerous reasons. First, Israel is deliberately ambiguous about its nuclear weapons capability, officially maintaining that it will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the region. Second, as one of the only countries in the world to have ever carried out preemptive attacks on nascent nuclear programs (for example in Iraq and Syria), Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons is often viewed as particularly hypocritical. Finally, in defiance of numerous requests and resolutions issued by the General Assembly of the UN which call on Israel to join the NPT, Israel nevertheless continues to refuse. This places it in the not so select company of Pakistan, North Korea, and India.
