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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Nuclear talks target Iran, N. Korea


Chieko Neyo, of Osaka, Japan, whose brother died in the A-bomb attack on Hiroshima in 1945, joins a peace rally in New York's Central Park on Sunday. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Charles J. Hanley Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS – In a world of growing nuclear fears and mistrust, U.S. negotiators come to New York today to urge a global nonproliferation conference to take action on Iran and North Korea.

But the Americans and other nuclear powers will face demands themselves. Non-nuclear states complained last week the big powers are moving too slowly toward nuclear disarmament, described as “not an option but a legal obligation” under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Because of this clash of priorities, treaty members still hadn’t completed an agenda on Sunday for the month-long conference opening today to review the treaty, whose workings are reassessed every five years.

In distant capitals, nuclear tensions heightened over the weekend as the U.N. conference neared.

After renewed talks with European negotiators made no reported progress, Iran said Saturday it probably would resume disputed operations this week related to uranium enrichment, a potential step toward an atom bomb.

On Sunday, Iran’s supreme leader said his country’s next elected president will not relinquish the right to pursue its nuclear program.

The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a speech in the southeastern city of Kerman, indicate an apparent firming of Iranian policy toward its nuclear program as the country prepares for June 17 elections, which will see a new president elected to replace outgoing pro-reform leader Mohammad Khatami, who is barred by law from seeking a third term.

North Korea, meanwhile, denounced President Bush on Saturday as a “hooligan” and said it doesn’t expect a solution to the standoff over its nuclear program during his tenure.

The North Koreans, who declared in 2003 they were withdrawing from the treaty, have since said they have built nuclear weapons.

Conference organizers anticipate a low-key approach toward North Korea, to avoid complicating efforts to draw it back into six-party talks aimed at shutting down its nuclear program. But Bush administration officials say they will work to make treaty noncompliance the focus of the review sessions.

“The conference should condemn North Korea’s egregious behavior,” U.S. delegation leader Stephen G. Rademaker told a House subcommittee last Thursday.

Without targeting Pyongyang, European and Canadian proposals before the conference would make it more difficult for future North Koreas to withdraw from the treaty without sanction.

Under the 35-year-old NPT, North Korea and 183 other states were to have forsworn nuclear arms in exchange for a pledge by five nuclear powers – the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China – to move toward nuclear disarmament. But, under treaty rules, Pyongyang was able to withdraw without penalty.

The Iran situation hinges on another part of the NPT “bargain,” the treaty’s guarantee that nonweapons states have access to peaceful nuclear technology, including uranium-enrichment equipment that can produce fuel for nuclear power plants and, with further enrichment, for nuclear bombs.

The Bush administration says Iran’s enrichment program, which was long secret, is meant for weapons-building, a charge Tehran denies.

President Bush proposes banning such sensitive dual-use equipment from all but the United States and a dozen other countries that already have it. Mohamad ElBaradei, head of the U.N. nuclear agency, proposes a less discriminatory approach: putting fuel production under multilateral control, by regional or international bodies.

Neither idea has yet gained wide support, but many conference participants see open access to the nuclear fuel cycle as an NPT loophole. Potential remedies are sure to be discussed.

Iran has countered with a proposal to make the Middle East a nuclear weapons-free zone, which would mean elimination of Israel’s arsenal. Israel, India and Pakistan – all with nuclear weapons – remain outside the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Nonweapons states, meanwhile, say they’re increasingly frustrated by Bush administration policies – its rejection of the nuclear test-ban treaty, its withdrawal from the antiballistic-missile treaty, and its talk of modifying and developing new nuclear weapons.

An 89-nation meeting in Mexico City last week adopted a preconference declaration expressing “deep concern” over what is seen as moves contrary to the NPT’s disarmament clauses.

“Achieving nuclear disarmament is not an option, but a legal obligation contained in the NPT,” Mexico’s Luis Alfonso de Alba said at the meeting.