Reaching Critical Will

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

"Actively Waiting"

Front page article from the News in Review, the daily NGO newsletter from the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Monday, 7 May 2007

For the full edition of the News in Review, click here.

After waiting for two and half days, the PrepCom finally debated how to solve Iran's objection to the "reaffirming full compliance with the Treaty" clause in the proposed agenda late Friday afternoon. Chairman Amano convened the session at 5:57pm, three minutes before it was scheduled to close. Delegates spent most of Friday milling around the cafeteria and windowless Plenary room A, watching the major players scuttle back and forth from the Chair's conference room. When Amano did finally arrive nearly an hour after asking the rest of us to be there, governments insisted on having their turn to debate the situation, and we all stayed through a tense 48 minutes. Between the afternoon session and the five-minute long morning session, governments attempted three of the eight potential solutions we listed in last Friday's News In Review, as well as one new option.

At the morning session, Amano tried option 1, and ruled out option 2. In his capacity as Chair, Amano explained that "compliance with the Treaty means compliance with all provisions of the Treaty." At the same time, however, he said that "reopening the language [of the agenda] continues not to be a viable option." He then announced that he would not be opening the floor, even though Canada had its placard raised. He hoped states parties would be able to agree to the agenda by 5pm and then conduct discussions according to his revised indicative timetable. Between noon and 6pm, Amano continued consulting with the main players, including Iran and the United States, to see if this or any other compromise could be reached.

When we met again at three minutes to six, Iran could not agree to this solution, and instead proposed option 2. Iran objected to continuing with the Chair's agenda, even with the accompanying statement that compliance with the Treaty means compliance with all provisions of the Treaty. Iran said that "If the phrase 'all provisions' is added" to the agenda, it would "refrain from further amendment." When Amano opened the floor, Germany indicated that the EU wished to adopt the agenda "as is, with the understanding that [the Chair] read out." Canada said it did not think the proposed amendment was sincere, and called it a superfluous distraction from the PrepCom's purpose. Venezuela and Syria supported the amendment.

During the ensuing discussion, Canada and Australia also tried to move forward with option 3, continuing discussions without an agenda. They both said that continuing consultations on the agenda should not occur at the expense of substantive discussions. Canada, upset that the PrepCom had already squandered 5 sessions of the annual gathering, suggested that they move forward initially by introducing working papers and discussing them. However, on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, Cuba reminded the PrepCom that NAM could not start to discuss substantive issues without an agenda.

South Africa then jumped into the fray, and introduced a new option: that the PrepCom, not the Chair, "decides that it understands the reference in the agenda to 'reaffirming the need for full compliance with the Treaty' to mean that it will consider compliance with all provisions of the Treaty." Unlike all the other options above, there was no opposition to this one, although Iran and Syria requested it in writing to send back to capital. Algeria requested clarification on how the decision would relate to the agenda, and called it "an excellent thing" with "several advantages". These advantages include that the "all provisions" understanding would be on record as a decision by the entire PrepCom, that no one currently opposes it, that it could be taken as a vote without putting the agenda to a vote, and that it would enable the PrepCom to finally get down to business.

After all our creative solutions and anticipations, we left on Friday with no more clear an idea of what will happen this week. We need to finally have a substantive meeting on Monday morning, with agreement on the agenda and the timetable for discussions. We are still waiting.

- Jennifer Nordstrom, Reaching Critical Will