APPENDIX 7
Memorandum from the Non-Proliferation
Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR
WEAPONS
1. The Foreign Affairs Committee has asked
to receive memoranda following each of the 2002, 2003 and 2004
Preparatory Committees of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It asked for the Government's aims for
each Committee and whether they were achieved, together with a
summary of the proceedings and conclusions of each Committee.
2. A Review Conference for the implementation
of the NPT is held every five years. There will be three to four
sessions of the Preparatory Committee to prepare for the next
Conference in 2005. The first session was held from 8-19 April
this year in New York. The NPT Review Conference of 2000 had tasked
the 2002 and 2003 sessions to consider matters of substance relating
to the NPT and to "factually summarise" these issues.
The third Preparatory Committee session held in 2004 is tasked
with producing recommendations for 2005. The Chair of the Committee
rotates between the three main regional groups (Western Group,
Eastern Group and Non-Aligned Movement).
3. Of the 187 states party to the NPT, 138
attended the first session of the Preparatory Committee. Of the
four non-parties (Cuba, India, Israel and Pakistan), Cuba was
present as an observer. Other organisations, including non-governmental
organisations, attended relevant sessions. Ambassador Henrik Salander
of Sweden, of the Western Group, was elected Chair.
4. The 19 meetings of the 2002 Preparatory
Committee were structured to provide equal time for consideration
of the main areas of the Treaty. These included the implementation
of the provisions of the Treaty relating to the non-proliferation
of nuclear weapons, disarmament, safeguards of nuclear materials,
nuclear weapon-free zones and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
Time was also set aside for specific topics relating to disarmament,
regional issues and the safety and security of peaceful nuclear
programmes, including the prevention of nuclear terrorism.
5. The opening speech by the UK (attached[9])
set out our main aims and priorities. Our principal objective
was to work to ensure the continuing health of the NPT and to
confirm its central importance as the key multilateral nuclear
non-proliferation instrument. It was particularly welcoming therefore
to see a number of states party to joining the UK in making use
of the new format of the Preparatory Committee to underline their
commitment to the goals of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its
implementation.
6. Another objective was to highlight the
steps the UK has taken towards disarmament (Article VI of the
Treaty) and to welcome moves by others towards global and verifiable
nuclear disarmament. We listed UK achievements in the disarmament
field in the last few years and were able to announce that the
UK's last Chevaline warhead would be dismantled in April 2002.
The UK also drew attention to some theoretical and practical studies
we have been carrying out. These studies hope to identify candidate
technologies that could be used to verify reductions in any future
arms reduction process that involves the decommissioning and dismantling
of nuclear weapons. We expressed the hope that we would be able
to publish an unclassified paper on this before the Review Conference
in 2005. In highlighting the steps taken by others towards disarmament,
we welcomed the talks on reductions by the US and Russia, which
has since resulted in the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty
("Treaty of Moscow").
7. Another UK disarmament objective was
to highlight our continued commitment to the entry into force
of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The UK, along with
France, was the first Nuclear Weapon State to ratify this Treaty
of 6 April 1998. Likewise, we emphasised our support for the negotiation
of a Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty in the Conference on Disarmament
in Geneva.
8. Universality of arms control treaties
has long been an objective of the UK. To this end we, along with
many other states, called upon the four non-membersIndia,
Israel, Pakistan and Cubato join the NPT as non-nuclear
weapon states. Regrettably, at present, all four still remain
outside the NPT.
9. It is a UK objective to raise awareness
of both compliance and non-proliferation issues. We urged states
whose respect for the Treaty has been in doubt to provide assurance
that the integrity of the NPT was being respected. We named Iraq
and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in this context.
In response to Iraq's assertions that it was compliant with the
International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) requirements, we stressed
that the inspection of declared nuclear material subject to safeguards
in Iraq was no substitute for the broader and more intensive United
Nations Security Council mandated verification measures.
10. The other UK objectives, particularly
in the wake of terrorist events in 2001, was to highlight the
importance of non-proliferation. The UK has committed an initial
voluntary contribution of £250,000 to the IAEA's new counter-terrorism
fund to assist in this. Raising awareness of the importance of
both export controls and of safeguards of nuclear material is
clearly very important for the UK and all other states who do
not wish to see a proliferation of nuclear weapons technology.
UK speeches drew attention to their importance and we supported
a suggestion that it should be an obligation for NPT state parties
to bring the Additional Protocol into force. The Additional Protocol
was developed after weaknesses in the IAEA safeguards system were
revealed by events in the early 1990s, most notably the discovery
in the aftermath of the Gulf War that Iraq had been developing
a clandestine nuclear weapons programme while at the same time
ostensibly respecting a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with
the IAEA. We believe that Additional Protocols will increase the
effectiveness and efficiency of existing safeguards. The UK signed
an additional protocol in 1998. Implementing legislation received
Royal Assent in May 2000 and it will be brought into force when
all other European Union member states complete their ratification
procedures. Prior to entry into force we are providing the IAEA
with voluntary declarations of the type required by the protocol.
11. To highlight UK work on non-proliferation
in the Middle East, and to fulfil the requirements of the Final
Document of the 2000 Review Conference, the UK made a written
report on the Middle East.
12. The Preparatory Committee adopted a
procedural report to the Conference at its final session on 19
April. Annexed to that report was the Chair's factual summary
(also attached[10]).
This non-negotiated, non-binding, text was issued on a personal
basis and covered issues raised at the meetings including disarmament,
compliance, universality and non-proliferation. Most states parties
welcomed the Summary as generally reflecting discussions at the
Preparatory Committee although many, including the UK, highlighted
areas to which they would have ideally given more attention. The
UK would, for example, have stressed non-proliferation and compliance
as measures of equal validity with disarmament for evaluating
the Treaty's operation. We would have pressed for greater attention
to be given to our own achievements in the disarmament field.
13. The second session of the Preparatory
Committee will be held in Geneva from 2 April to 9 May 2003. It
will be chaired by Ambassador La«szlo« Molna«r
of Hungary of the Eastern Group. The third session will take place
in 2004. The Chair will be drawn from the Non-Aligned Movement
but has yet to be appointed.
Non-Proliferation Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
June 2002
9 First session of the Preparatory Committee for the
2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons. Statement by the Acting Head of the United
Kingdom Delegation, Ambassador Peter Jenkins, 9 April 2002. Not
printed. Back
10
Not printed. Published as Annex II, to the Preparatory Committee's
Report, NPT/CONF.2005/PC.I/21. Back
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