Nuclear Weapons Treaty Review Meeting Ends without Resolution
Aug. 28, 2022 (EIRNS)—The Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was held on Aug. 1-26, 2022 at the UN Headquarters in New York City, but ended without a resolution. The NPT Review is held every five years, but was postponed from 2020 until now, due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The line in the major Western media is that Russia was the skunk at the party, because it objected to the sentence on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Russia did object to the sentence, with reason. The draft final resolution text carried the current NATO/U.S./Britain charge that Ukraine, not Russia, must control the plant. The draft stressed “the paramount importance of ensuring control by Ukraine’s competent authorities of nuclear facilities ... such as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.”
On that point, Russia, whose forces control the area where the plant is, has not endangered the nuclear plant, and has been using Ukrainian staff to reliably supply nuclear power to all in the region.
The Russian delegation spoke against the sentence, and at some point walked out of the proceedings.
Andrei Belousov, Deputy Head of the Russian Delegation at the Closing Meeting of the 10th NPT Review Conference, explained the Russian position, as the impossibility of negotiating in the situation, because a number of nations politicized the conference. Belousov listed some of the reasons making the final document unacceptable, stating in his conclusion:
“The Conference has become a political hostage to those States that over the last four weeks have been poisoning discussions with their politicized, biased, groundless and false statements with regard to Ukraine. Thus, they did everything they could to prevent a constructive, effective and result-oriented work of the Conference and as a whole of the NPT States Parties during the entire review process. Their desire to impose unacceptable political language on Ukrainian issues is a pure provocation by those who are ready to sacrifice the results of the years-long NPT review process and use the Conference to settle scores with Russia by raising issues that are not directly related to the Treaty.
“Such an approach of these States runs counter to the NPT’s priorities of creating an international environment conducive to progress toward nuclear disarmament, which requires the joint efforts of nuclear and non-nuclear-weapon States.
“These States, namely Ukraine and the backers of the Kiev regime, bear full responsibility for the absence of a final positive result of this review.
“Anti-Russian statements were heard throughout the Conference. They have been particularly cynical in recent days. Their background was the barbaric shelling of the Zaporozhye [Zaporizhzhia] nuclear power plant by Ukrainian forces, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. We have heard them even today.
“The reasons mentioned, taken together, prevented us from supporting the draft report you presented, Mr. President.”
