Middle East WMD Free Zone

The time for positive ideas on the Zone is NOW!

BASIC's Executive Director, Paul Ingram, reflects on the NPT and where we are on the establishment of the Middle East WMD-free zone:

The NPT PrepCom this week has been overshadowed by the near-universal frustration over the lack of progress on holding a conference on a Middle East zone free of WMD. State after state got up in plenary to express that frustration, many condemning the co-sponsors’ decision in late 2012 to postpone.

The time for positive ideas on the Zone is NOW!

BASIC's Executive Director, Paul Ingram, reflects on the NPT and where we are on the establishment of the Middle East WMD-free zone:

The NPT PrepCom this week has been overshadowed by the near-universal frustration over the lack of progress on holding a conference on a Middle East zone free of WMD. State after state got up in plenary to express that frustration, many condemning the co-sponsors’ decision in late 2012 to postpone.

Istanbul event supporting 2012 conference on a WMD-free zone in Mideast

BASIC held a roundtable in Istanbul, on October 24 and 25, 2012, in support of the 2012 conference on a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.

The Track II event, held in coordination with the office of the conference facilitator, Jaakko Laajava of Finland, was attended by expert and government representatives from the region and beyond. 

Read the final report from the roundtable: here.


Hopes rising for Mideast WMD meeting

Amid rising optimism about the prospects for convening a 2012 conference on establishing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East, Finnish diplomat Jaakko Laajava is to deliver his first briefing to states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in Vienna next month on his efforts to pull the meeting together. Anne Penketh reports on where things stand in the April edition of Arms Control Today.