The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, today expressed his disappointment at the failure of the review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which ended on Friday without an agreement, and pointed out that the lack of consensus threatens collective security.
“While the Secretary-General welcomes the sincere and meaningful commitment of the parties to the NPT and the fact that the conference has recognized the treaty as the ‘cornerstone’ of the global disarmament and non-proliferation regime, he regrets that there has been no been able to address the pressing challenges that threaten our collective security,” Guterres’ spokesman said in a statement.
The UN Secretary General also stressed that the current international context and “the growing risk of the use of nuclear weapons by accident or miscalculation requires urgent and decisive action.”
“A world free of nuclear weapons remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations and a goal to which the Secretary-General remains firmly committed,” the spokesperson added.
At the end of almost a month of discussions, and after several hours of prolonged debate in search of a consensus, the conference ended on Friday without the adoption of the final document due to Russian objections.
Russia blocked the deal at the 10th treaty review conference, particularly on issues related to the invasion of Ukraine and the occupation of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
The Moscow delegation was the only one that took the floor in the final session to oppose the latest project presented by the conference president, the Argentine Gustavo Zlauvinen, and that the remaining 191 NPT signatories were willing to accept.
Russia claimed that of the entire lengthy document, it only had problems with five paragraphs because it felt it was “politicized.”
Although the Russian delegation did not indicate which ones, diplomatic sources pointed out that the disagreements, which have arisen in the last few hours, focused on references to the situation at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia and the need to return control to the competent authorities.
This plant, the largest in Europe, was taken over by Russian troops at the beginning of the war and in recent days has been the object of repeated attacks, of which Moscow and kyiv accuse each other, which have set off alarms about a possible disaster.
The sweeping final declaration negotiated at the end of the conference reviewed NPT implementation and set priorities for the future, at a time when the UN has warned that the risk of nuclear conflict is at its highest point in decades.
Although the war in Ukraine made this meeting especially complicated, it is not the first time that the periodic review of the NPT ends without consensus, as happened in the last edition, held seven years ago.
Source: Observadora
