Finnish diplomat Jaakko Laajava starts a new job this week.
Finland, the cradle of the Helsinki process that played a vital role in ending the Cold War, is no stranger to international mediation. But this could be the toughest assignment yet for Finland’s undersecretary of state at the foreign ministry, who was named last Friday to be facilitator of the 2012 conference on a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.
Tomorrow and on Thursday this week, the European Union has an opportunity to influence the preparations for a conference on a Middle East WMD-free zone.
Writing about the EU conference on a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East, Julian Borger in his Global Security Blog for The Guardian refers to BASIC’s Washington Program Director Anne Penketh’s article on the subject.
One year ago, on May 28, 2010, the signatory states of the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agreed in New York to convene a 2012 conference on establishing a WMD-free zone in the Middle East (ME).
Israel should realize that attending an international conference with its neighbors is in its own security interests
The eight-year Iran–Iraq war and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait were often reported as the reason Iran considered nuclear weapons. With Iraq neutralized, Iran may have felt secure enough to cease weapons-related work.