The 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in New York has just completed its third week. The NPT, signed by the five major nuclear parties and joined by non-nuclear states, is based on three basic principles: disarmament, preventing nuclear dissemination and peaceful uses of atomic energy. Review conferences are held every five years. This year's review conference comes at a critical juncture for the treaty, in itself, and for the Middle East in particular, especially in light of the failure to hold an international conference for the creation of a zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. The conference had been scheduled for 2012. There has been no significant progress in this regard for the region in more than four decades. Many participants in this, the ninth, NPT review conference believe that the treaty needs to be re-evaluated and rectified. To the major nuclear parties, it has served their purpose, which is to retain their nuclear arms capacities while preventing other states from possessing them hence maintaining the status quo. But to non-nuclear nations the treaty is discriminatory. It divides nations into two categories: those that possess nuclear arms and those that do not, and that will never possess them. In addition to this, many share the belief that there have not been sufficiently firm attempts to compel countries such as Israel, Pakistan and India to sign the treaty. The Egyptian and Arab position is to continually underscore the universality of the NPT and the need for all countries in the world to join it. There should be no exceptions, for to allow exceptions violates the principle of universality. Accordingly, Israel a nuclear-armed country should ratify the treaty as soon as possible, submit all its nuclear installations to the full scope of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guarantees and undertake to fully commit to the three principles of the NPT. All Arab countries are state parties to the NPT and committed to all its principles and obligations, as a form of demonstrating good intentions. In 1995, they agreed to the indefinite extension of the treaty in exchange for a resolution to create a nuclear free zone in the Middle East. During the 2010 NPT review conference a mechanism was devised to implement the 1995 resolution regarding the Middle East. It called for holding an international conference for the creation of a WMD free zone in the Middle East in 2012, and for appointing a facilitator for that conference. The conference was postponed by the US, unilaterally, on the grounds that the situation in the Middle East was too unstable to convene it. Accordingly, the countries with which the treaty is deposited have not fulfilled their commitment to implement the decisions taken in the 1995 and 2010 review conferences with respect to the Middle East. Given all the grave challenges that face the region the collapse of states, the chaos, the emergence of terrorist groups that serve as tools for powers outside this region to achieve their objectives, not to mention the ongoing threat presented by Israel's ambiguous nuclear programme the need to create a zone free of nuclear weapons in the Middle East has grown more urgent than ever. Not only is it crucial to restoring stability to this region, it is also essential in order to prevent highly lethal nuclear arms from falling into the hands of terrorist groups. Before the NPT review conference ends on 22 May, Egypt and the other Arab countries have two ways to promote the realisation of the goal of creating a WMD-free zone in the Middle East. The first is to secure reaffirmation of commitments to all previously adopted measures and resolutions regarding this question and to press for the adoption, by this year's NPT review conference, of a new mechanism for implementing the resolution of 1995, the outputs of the NPT review conference in 2000, and the action plan for the Middle East adopted in 2010. The Arab state parties maintain that the conference must reaffirm its absolute commitment to creating a WMD-free zone in the Middle East by holding an international conference toward this end immediately after the NPT review conference ends. This would set in motion negotiations between all Middle East states with the aim of transforming the Middle East into a region free of nuclear weapons. In addition, the conference should ask the IAEA to prepare for the purposes of the abovementioned conference all the relevant documents that furnish the essential information on ways to verify a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. This would be based on the work the agency has previously done towards this end in the region, and towards the implementation of similar international agreements to create nuclear weapons-free zones in other regions. These steps, followed by the commitment to implement the mechanism under UN supervision, are the minimum of what is required to sustain the credibility of the NPT to its members. The alternative is for Egypt and the Arab states to threaten to withdraw from the NPT while forging ahead with their nuclear development programmes. The Arab region will soon see a proliferation of nuclear reactors. The future of nuclear programmes in each country rests on the seriousness and degree of competence with which they will manage their nuclear affairs in the coming period. The writer is a political researcher at Cairo University.
