The year 2010 is a very important year for Indian nuclear society .
NPT Review Conference is Scheduled to take place from May 3-28 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The NPT is reviewed every five years by all states that are party to the Treaty. These meetings are known formally as the Review Conferences of the Parties to the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The last NPT review conference ended in failure. Many blame the failure on George W. Bush, whose perception of Iran and North Korea as threats made him reluctant to compromise.
The United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia were granted a special status by the NPT which allowed them to keep their nuclear weapons, under the condition that they begin disarmament talks. Many countries feel the five haven’t lived up to that condition, therefore a successful START agreement before May will do a lot towards ensuring a successful conference.
The purpose of the review is to maintain and strengthen the effectiveness of the Treaty, which contains three pillars: nonproliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and disarmament.
President Obama’s groundbreaking April 2009 Prague speech and his unprecedented nuclear nonproliferation agenda have kindled an ideal political atmosphere for the Review Conference.
Concrete items for discussion are likely to include the proliferation challenges presented by Iran and North Korea, ongoing and planned nuclear reductions, NPT universalization, Additional Protocol universalization, consequences for treaty violation and withdrawal, nuclear-weapon-free zones, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) expired on December 5. Obama and Russian President Medvedev announced in Copenhagen that they plan to have a new agreement signed in 2010. The new agreement will call for very few reductions in nuclear weapons, but it is imperative that the treaty be completed before the May nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference.
The litmus test of US commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons’ is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which would outlaw all testing. A Republican Senate refused to ratify the CTBT in 1999, and George W. Bush didn’t want a treaty which would prevent him from testing weapons.
The new administration under President Obama has reversed this position, and has been sounding out the Senate.
Japan Tuesday urged India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. India in its turn put the onus on the US and China to show the way by ratifying the treaty.
Now it is almost sure that US will sign CTBT and will in turn put huge pressure on India to sign the same. India will have to sign it then especially when much of its civilian nuclear deals are blocked primarily because of its staunch negative attitude to NPT and CTBT.
*eclectic source
