As delivered
Harald Müller
Good morning, everybody. I am Harald Müller, Director of PRIF and Vice President of the EU Consortium. Before I open this plenary, let me dispose of a rather sad duty. In the name of the consortium, I wish to remind you all of the passing away two weeks ago of Dr Thérèse Delpech, who was an eminent figure in our profession. I met Thérèse in 1985 in Brussels at one of the early meetings on shaping a European non-proliferation policy. Thérèse had just joined the Commissariat à l’énergie atomique in Paris and was the first French official to tell me frankly that she was of the belief that her country should join the NPT forthwith. That day, a friendship for life began.
I have always admired her extraordinarily sharp analytical mind – no one of us could ever match it. Thérèse was devoted to the project of European integration. She was a strong believer in the friendship between France and Germany and was committed to the transatlantic partnership as the main pillar for world order. She was a very moral person. When she was determined, she would not tolerate empty talk or any wavering or nonsense. She had deep compassion for human suffering. Above all, she was a wonderful human being, and a dear and reliable friend. May I ask you kindly to stand for a moment’s silence in honour and memory of Dr Thérèse Delpech.
[A moment’s silence]
Thank you. Let us now start with the agenda of this panel, which deals with strengthening the NPT in the year when the new review cycle is starting and when we are all, I think, in need of new ideas. As the convenor of this meeting has indicated, chairs are not allowed to delve into the biographies of their speakers. For this panel, that might be fortunate, since I would perhaps not complete the biographies before the end of the meeting.
-
Our first speaker is Ambassador Boguslaw Winid, Under Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Poland.
-
To my left is Ambassador David Hannay, who, after a long and outstanding career in the British Foreign Service, now works as joint convenor of the All-Party Group on Global Security and Non-Proliferation in the UK House of Lords.
-
The last speaker on the panel is my old friend George Perkovich, known to everybody as the convenor of the famous Carnegie Conferences, who is Senior Vice President for Studies and Director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC.
Each speaker will introduce a subject for about 10 minutes, following which we will have a plenary discussion.
Boguslaw Winid
Thank you very much, Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, thank you for organising this conference. The timing is just perfect. For those of us involved in disarmament and non‑proliferation issues, we are approaching two key events in the coming months: the nuclear security summit on 26-27 March in Seoul, and the conference in Vienna. Some of us in the government and non-government community are preparing the final documents for the Seoul conference. As far as I know, the preparatory meeting in New Delhi went very well. We almost completed the process of preparing the documents. There are still some brackets, but that is the normal condition and we are looking forward to having a very good conference in Seoul, with the participation of all our leaders.
The outcome of the 2010 review conference on the NPT positively influenced the condition of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. In addition, in 2010, the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was signed. There were encouraging developments but, in reality, the nuclear non‑proliferation regime is still under pressure. At the very outset of the new NPT review cycle – the meeting in Vienna – we continued to face the same challenges related to three pillars of the NPT: nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In terms of how we will be able to address them, the answer is not easy, but one thing is sure: our action will have a decisive impact on the strength of the NPT and the condition of the nuclear non-proliferation regime as a whole.
There are three crucial issues at the upcoming NPT review cycle: nuclear disarmament – from the Polish perspective, non-strategic nuclear weapons are of special importance; non-proliferation; and a WMD-free zone in the Middle East. Let me refer to these three issues separately: first, nuclear disarmament and Article 6 of the NPT. Progress in nuclear disarmament is of utmost importance for the regime’s future. The 2010 NPT Review Conference proposed certain steps in this regard. The nuclear-weapon states are requested to report on their implementation to the 2014 preparatory committee (PrepCom).
The priority issue for Poland is to address the question of all nuclear weapons, regardless of their type and location. Priority should be given to tactical nuclear weapons, or sub-strategic nuclear weapons, which, in contrast to strategic nuclear arsenals, have been covered by no legally binding arms-control agreement. A world free of nuclear weapons cannot be achieved without making sub‑strategic weapons an integral part of the general nuclear disarmament process, which Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski, together with his Swedish colleague Minister Carl Bildt, made it clear in their op-ed published in the International Herald Tribune in February 2010.
In the same direction, Polish and Norway, in the framework of NATO, presented two non-papers – the first a bilateral Polish/Norwegian and the second co-sponsored by 10 other countries – which ignited a live discussion on the possibility of reciprocal confidence-building transparency measures that could be implemented together by NATO and our Russian partners. We hope that, in the future, this might also lead to reductions.
Sub-strategic nuclear weapons should not be looked at only from the point of view of nuclear disarmament. They also constitute a challenge in terms of nuclear security. I would argue that sub‑strategic arms are more prone to proliferation by non-state actors than strategic arms. The 2010 NPT conference committed nuclear-weapon states to further enhance the transparency of existing arsenals to increase mutual confidence, but, in addition to providing data on numbers, types and locations of nuclear warheads, it is necessary to conduct discussions on the role of nuclear weapons in military doctrines, politics and concepts. Clarity in this will also lay the foundation for more spectacular disarmament undertakings.
Nuclear-weapon states should be mindful of what the non-nuclear international community and community of experts expect from them. It is a positive sign that the five permanent members of the Security Council (P5) are willing to discuss joint ways of addressing their nuclear NPT obligations. One meeting already took place in Paris in June last year; the next meeting is to be organised in the UK. This is a very positive step.
A challenge is that nuclear-weapon states differ on their nuclear posture and have a very different opinion on the degree of transparency. This is a job for non-nuclear-weapon states and the international community of experts: we should exploit these differences and create a positive competition in openness and transparency between nuclear‑weapon states. We hope we can achieve positive results using these differences, or create a positive example. The international community should also act to bring into force the international mechanisms that supplement the nuclear non-proliferation regime. I can talk about two: the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the still-to-be-negotiated Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT).
Moving to nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are, of course, mutually reinforcing. One cannot progress with nuclear disarmament without strengthening nuclear non-proliferation politics and improving verification mechanisms. Otherwise, the irreversible nuclear disarmament and the diminishing role of nuclear weapons in nuclear-weapon states can be used as an argument to discourage potential proliferators from acquiring those weapons. Non‑proliferation is important for upholding the integrity of the NPT. A view on the disturbing information on the scope of the Iranian nuclear programme and the issue of the compliance of states with their non-proliferation obligations are and should be very high on our agenda, and here I agree with Ambassador Popowski.
The central role in that regard belongs to the IAEA. It is to be decided how we can strengthen the IAEA, and especially its safeguard systems. The EU must continue to advocate for the universalisation of the Additional Protocol agreements. The Additional Protocol gives more tools to the IAEA, allowing inspectors to verify with greater probability the scope of nuclear activities. The compliance issue also leads to the important question of NPT withdrawal: what should the international community do if a country identified as being non-compliant with treaty provisions pulls out of the NPT? In all cases, withdrawal can constitute a threat to international peace and security; therefore, there is a role for the UN Security Council to play. During the previous NPT review cycle, there were interesting exchanges of views on that topic, as well as some possible solutions. We believe that we should exploit this and continue this discussion in terms of how to improve the system, especially given the current Iranian situation.
A Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other WMD is an extremely difficult subject, but the 1995 resolution on the Middle East became a core issue during the 2010 review conference. It will also dominate the upcoming review cycle. We must be mindful that the 2012 conference, which is to be organised under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General, will not bring instant results. Nevertheless, it is important to start the process, which, ultimately, should serve the interests of all countries in the region. The seminar organised by the EU in July 2011 and the IAEA forum on a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East in November 2011 did their job in terms of bringing interested parties together and allowing them, for the first time, to have an informal exchange of views. This meeting also made it clear that the experience of other nuclear weapons‑free zones is useful in the Middle East only to a limited extent.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude with some remarks on non-proliferation and disarmament initiatives. The action plan comprised in the 2010 review conference final document created a roadmap for strengthening the NPT and breaking the deadlock over the most pressing issue for the nuclear non-proliferation regime. If this chance is used wisely, it could allow NPT states to aim for more ambitious goals at upcoming review conferences, especially in 2015, but no one can guarantee a positive outcome. It is up to the states concerned to move the agenda forward.
Therefore, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski joined his counterparts from Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey to create a Non-proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI). The NPDI is aimed at taking forward the consensus outcome from the 2010 review conference. Ministers from 10 countries have met three times: twice on margins of the two consecutive UN General Assembly sessions in 2010 and 2011, and independently in Berlin in April 2011. They committed to supporting the implementation of the review conference recommendations under all three NPT pillars.
This declaration has already translated into concrete actions. Countries explore possibilities to cooperate on four issues: bringing the FMCT negotiations forward; promoting the entry into force of CTBT; the universalisation of the IAEA Additional Protocol; and transparency in nuclear disarmament. The ministers agreed that we will prepare an NPT working paper on the transparency of nuclear weapons. We are now working on the draft of this document and we hope to agree the text in April before submission to the review conference in May.
The NPDI and similar endeavours are important for supplementing the non-proliferation regime. Political will, strategic thinking and the hard work of us in the government and expert communities are necessary to ensure a substantive new NPT review cycle that will result in further strengthening the non-proliferation regime. Ladies and gentlemen, after all, failure is not a good option for the future. Thank you very much.
