Date:05/05/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/05/05/stories/2005050507661100.htm

Opinion - News Analysis

Nuclear double standards

Simon Tisdall

Non-weapons states accuse nuclear powers of double standards.

MANY DAMAGING accusations have been levelled at John Bolton, President George Bush's controversial nominee as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.

But perhaps the most serious is that Mr. Bolton, as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security since 2001, bungled efforts to dissuade North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. He helped to scrap the Clinton administration's 1994 "agreed framework" that froze North Korea's weapons-related plutonium reprocessing programme. The framework was imperfect — but nothing remotely adequate replaced it.

In 2002, President Bush denounced North Korea as part of the "axis of evil." In 2003, Pyongyang withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and traded insults with Mr. Bolton. In February, it declared itself a nuclear weapons state. And at the weekend, on the eve of the treaty review conference in New York, North Korea said stalled regional talks were effectively dead.

The Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency conceded last week that North Korea probably now has nuclear-armed missiles capable of hitting U.S. soil.

This signal policy failure risks being repeated in Iran, with which Mr. Bolton has also refused to deal directly. Western countries suspect Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons. It says it is interested only in generating nuclear-powered electricity.

Unlike Pyongyang, Teheran still belongs to the treaty and has signed the "additional protocol" allowing intrusive U.N. inspections. But as the conference met this week, E.U.-led efforts to persuade Iran to suspend uranium enrichment were on the verge of breakdown.

Mr. Bush proposed last year to "cap" the number of states possessing fuel enrichment capabilities. The International Atomic Energy Agency has suggested a five-year moratorium on new facilities in return for guaranteed fuel supplies for certified users.

But as the independent British-American Security Information Council points out: "There is no international consensus on how to deal with the problem."

"The big loophole in the treaty is legal acquisition [of dual-use technology]," a British official said. "We want to try and address it as much as possible, but it's fiendishly difficult."

Such pessimism appears well-founded. Non-weapons states accuse nuclear powers of double standards.

The Bush administration's weapons modernisation and development plans, and its overall disdain for arms treaties, are said to undermine the treaty. So, too, is Britain's refusal to relinquish theoretical "first use" of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear armed state.

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