March 17, 2014

OFFICIAL: OTHER ISSUES DISTRACTED FROM IRAN, NORTH KOREA AT NPT MEETING

By ExchangeMonitor

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Following an international meeting this spring on the Nonproliferation Treaty, a State Department official yesterday said he was disappointed by the focus by nonweapons states on the pace of U.S. and Russian disarmament. The preparatory committee meeting was held in April and May in Geneva to prepare for the next five-year review of on the implementation of the NPT, to be held in 2015. “A number of states at the review conference continued to express concern and disappointment that the perceived pace of disarmament is too slow. Obviously we disagree with them,” Assistant Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation Thomas Countryman said yesterday in a speech at George Washington University, noting progress made under the New START treaty and other efforts.

Countryman expressed concern that such efforts distract from Iran and North Korea. “What disappointed us more, perhaps, was that there was greater focus in the NPT prepcom on this issue of disarmament by the nuclear weapons states and not enough on what we consider to be the greater threat to the long-term health of the treaty, and that is noncompliance development of weapons programs by both Iran and North Korea,” he said, adding that a recent campaign on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons has also been a distraction. “I think few people in Geneva were happier than the Iranian delegation at the amount of time focused on these issues… because it meant that much less time was devoted to Iran’s record of noncompliance,” he said.

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