By Louis Charbonneau, Reuters
BERLIN - North Korea's nuclear test has dealt a serious blow to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and analysts say a change in U.S. strategy is needed to avert an arms race that could destroy the benchmark arms control accord.
The NPT, which opened for signature in 1968 and came into force two years later, has three aims -- halting the spread of nuclear weapons, disarmament by countries with atomic arsenals and guaranteeing the right to peaceful nuclear technology.
But the agreement was written during the Cold War, not in the 21st century, where instability in regions like Asia and the Middle East have led some countries to consider going nuclear.
Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief and a former physicist, recently told the European Parliament one reason the NPT had loopholes is that its authors were not experts.
"I can say that the NPT, which was drafted in 1968, was based on very incomplete knowledge of nuclear technology," he said.
But North Korea's reported nuclear test highlights more than the pact's weaknesses and the need to repair its loopholes, analysts say. It shows the need for the United States to adopt a less confrontational method for dealing with enemy states.
"North Korea has the bomb. It's not too late with Iran," said Mark Fitzpatric of the London-based International Institute for StrategicStudies.
Iran has aggressively pursued a nuclear enrichment program that could enable it to produce fuel for atomic weapons and Western countries fear it could follow North Korea's example by choosing the "break-out option" -- develop the ability to produce atom bomb fuel, then withdraw from the NPT.
"The North Korean test is a serious threat to the NPT since more countries could follow. Iran is only the first one to mention," said Hans-Joachim Schmidt at the Peace Research Institute of Frankfurt, a German think-tank.
North Korea signed the treaty in 1985, but withdrew in 2003, soon after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But Iran is not the only threat to the NPT. In Asia, the key task for Washington will be to launch diplomatic efforts aimed at preventing a regional arms race that would be the death-knell for the NPT.
Japan, which sits on massive stocks of plutonium, might decide one day the U.S. nuclear security umbrella is not a sufficient enough deterrent against North Korea.
South Korea, which admitted in 2004 it had conducted undeclared uranium enrichment experiments, could follow suit.
Hans Blix, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it might be easier to persuade countries like North Korea and Iran not to develop nuclear weapons "if all great powers made sincere efforts to move the world toward nuclear disarmament.".
