Russia has blocked the adoption of a joint declaration by a United Nations conference on nuclear disarmament.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, revised by its 191 signatories every five years, aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Russia opposed a draft text citing “serious concern” about military activities around Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, particularly in Zaporizhzhia.
Participants in the last review in 2015 also failed to reach an agreement.
The 2022 meeting, scheduled for 2020, was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The failure to agree on a joint statement follows a four-week conference in New York. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was “deeply disappointed” by the lack of agreement.
“Russia has impeded progress by refusing to compromise on the proposed text accepted by all other states,” she said.
US Representative Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins said the United States “deeply regrets this outcome, and even more so the actions of Russia that have brought us here today.”
Russia objected to a section of the text expressing “serious concern” about military activities around Ukrainian power plants – including the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russia seized at the start of the war in Ukraine.
The draft section also remarked on “the loss of control by the competent Ukrainian authorities over such locations as a result of those military activities, and their profound negative impact on safety”.
Russia’s representative, Igor Vishnevetsky, said the draft final text lacked “balance”.
“Our delegation has one key objection on some paragraphs which are blatantly political in nature,” he said – adding that other countries also disagreed with the text.
The final document needed approval from all countries at the conference. Several countries, including the Netherlands and China, expressed disappointment that no consensus had been reached.
The Dutch said they were “content with the useful discussions” but “very disappointed that we have not reached consensus”. Chinn’s ambassador, meanwhile, said despite the lack of agreement, the process was “an important practice of common security and genuine multilateralism”.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty, backed by 190 countries in 1970, commits countries which signed up – including the US, Russia, France, the UK and China – to reduce their stockpiles and bars others from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Russia’s military took control of the plant, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, in early March, but it is still being operated by Ukrainian staff under difficult conditions.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is expected to organise a trip to the Zaporizhzhia plant in the coming days to inspect facilities there.