The world’s nuclear powers are pissed off and they’ve said so:
The five major nuclear-armed powers said on Friday the Non-Proliferation Treaty was under threat and cited Iran’s uranium enrichment campaign in a rare joint call for action to shore up the NPT.
North Korea’s nuclear test blast in 2006, Iran’s pursuit of potentially bomb-capable enrichment and new allegations Syria covertly tried to build an atomic reactor with North Korean help spotlight mounting challenges to the treaty, analysts say.
“The proliferation of nuclear weapons constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France said in a joint address on the final day of a two-week meeting of 106 NPT member nations.
“This … imperils prospects for progress on other NPT goals such as nuclear disarmament and hurts prospects for expanding international (civil) nuclear cooperation,” said British chief delegate John Duncan, speaking on behalf of the five.
“The proliferation risks presented by the Iranian nuclear program continue to be a matter of ongoing serious concern to us.” Tehran is under U.N. sanctions for refusing to suspend the work and curbing U.N. inspections meant to verify its nature.
I wonder where the world’s ‘minor’ nuclear-armed powers were. Perhaps they had their own little meeting in a separate room.
I guess it’s understandable that these guys should have meetings and fulminate about nuclear proliferation but in all honesty, the yanks and the French and probably the Brits should have thought about all this back in the 1960s or whenever it was they helped Israel get The Bomb. And doing nothing more than making a few unhappy noises when India and Pakistan started testing their little toys wasn’t really a credibility-enhancing move either, for any country that wants to tut tut now about the evil Persians.
I’d have a lot more respect for them if they’d only drop this sickening pretence that they’re concerned about peace and freedom and all that bullshit. Why not just come out guys and admit you like being the ones with da power? We all know that’s what you mean.
