Treaty a pipe dream

United Nations

Nuclear non-proliferation talks ended without agreement after the United States, Canada and Britain opposed a plan to set up a nuclear weapons-free zone in the

Middle East.

More than 150 countries took part in a month-long conference reviewing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and technology.

But talks on a final document outlining an action plan for the next five years hit a wall over a provision on convening a conference by March 2016 on creating a Middle East nuclear-weapons free zone.

Israel, which is not a member of the NPT but attended the conference as an observer, opposed the proposal backed by Egypt and Arab countries. Israel is believed to be the only country that possesses a nuclear arsenal in the region, although it has never acknowledged its nuclear military capacity.

US Arms Control Under Secretary Rose Gottemoeller told the NPT conference that provisions on holding the conference were “incompatible with our long-standing policies.”Gottemoeller argued that the proposed nuclear-free zone did not stand a chance of success “absent the consent of all states involved,” a clear reference to Israel’s opposition.

Earlier this week, the US administration had dispatched an envoy to Israel to discuss the proposal, hoping to reach a compromise that would have salvaged the final document of the NPT conference.

Gottemoeller took aim at “a number of states, in particular Egypt” for the failure of the talks, accusing them of refusing to “let go of unrealistic and unworkable conditions” to create the nuclear weapons-free zone.The head of the British delegation to the talks, Matthew Rowland, also said the terms for convening the conference on the nuclear weapons-free zone were “a stumbling block for us.”