Arms control

Toward the 2015 NPT Review Conference: Attitudes and Expectations of Member States in the Middle East

What might happen if States Parties from one of the most volatile regions in the world were to reconsider their membership of the principle international treaty that controls the deadliest weapons on Earth? Almost 20 years since the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), members of the Arab League have threatened to reconsider their position toward that extension on the basis that there has been no progress on the 1995 resolution associated with establishing a Middle East Zone free from weapons of mass destruction.

Prospects for Agreement with Iran

The negotiations over Iran’s nuclear activities between Iran and its Western interlocutors – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – on Iran’s nuclear activities are under way in New York again with no one optimistic about the immediate outcome.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons: The bigger picture

NATO heads of states discussed the multitude of threats at their summit in Wales earlier this month. The debate was predictably dominated by the Russian – Ukrainian crisis, though delegates also discussed how best to strengthen Afghan National Security Forces. Buried within the summit declaration was the condemnation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for carrying out nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests.

Do not let the Helsinki conference on a Mideast WMD-Free Zone fall off the “to-do” list

If Russia, the UK, and the US – as the co-conveners of the Helsinki conference on a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East – had a priority list of foreign policy agenda items, convening such a conference would likely be hidden somewhere on pages 4 or 5 of a double-sided document, printed in 11 pt. Calibri font. Even among key stakeholders, the mounting crises in the region might reduce the diplomatic impetus for convening the conference, at least within the intended deadline of “as soon as possible” and certainly before the 2015 NPT Review Conference.