UN Conference on Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Fails to Reach Agreement

SadaNews - A four-week United Nations conference to review the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons ended on Friday without reaching an agreement amid a dispute between the United States and Iran over the Iranian nuclear program.

The Vietnamese ambassador to the UN, Dang Hoang Giang, who chaired the conference, announced that there was no consensus among the 191 parties to the treaty even on a diluted final document.

In a later press conference, he stated that "no one obstructed consensus." However, he mentioned that a "very significant reason" for the failure to achieve a result was a clause in the final draft stating that Iran "can never seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons."

This marks the third consecutive failure of a conference to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is considered a cornerstone of global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. In the last treaty review in August 2022, Russia disrupted the agreement on a final document regarding its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and references to Moscow's occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe.