GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES | Second Quarterly 2013 – North America ...

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES - SECOND QUARTERLY 2013
Mohamed Kadry (MK): Let me give you some background.
Because of dreadful consequences and the menace emerging
from any new atomic power, the international community
decided to establish the NPT (Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty).
The initial idea was that the Treaty would be open to all
countries to join, with a review or a renewal discussion
process every ten years, after which any country could
renew its membership in the Treaty or just withdraw from
it. At the beginning, Egypt and Arab countries decided not
to join the Treaty . . .
Q: Why?
MK: Perhaps because they considered it 'useless' in view of
the fact that it was a Treaty out of which anybody could
walk out. At this stage the U.S. appeared on the scene pressurising
Egypt and the Arabs as well as Iran to join the
NPT. They agreed to join in exchange of two promises: that
the Treaty would be valid indefinitely – instead of being
renewable every ten years – and that efforts would be
made to free the Middle East from nuclear weapons.
Of course, this would include Israel. All that process culminated
in 1995. [The Treaty was opened for signature in
1968, and it entered into force in 1970. On May 11, 1995, it
was extended indefinitely.]
Q: That very year the UN Security Council issued a resolution
on the need to free the region from atomic weapons.
Any breakthrough since then?
MK: The fact that the Security Council's resolution was
adopted in 1995 did mean that the whole issue would be
settled that very year. It would be the starting point . . .
Q: But with the exception of the 2010 decision to hold an
international conference to find ways how to eliminate
nuclear weapons in the Middle East, nothing has happened
over the last 18 years. Why should then the Arab countries
in the region continue to be a part of the Treaty?
MK: The fact is that Arab research centres have met on
several occasions in the previous months to discuss precisely
this point. So far, there is a general consensus that if
the planned Helsinki conference is not held this year, in
2013, then we would recommend to Arab governments to
withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Q: The Iranian nuclear programme was launched in 2003,
before current president Ahmadi Nijad was elected. Tehran
claimed that it can enrich its uranium by 20 percent. But
the scientific community assures that an atomic bomb requires
95 per cent enriched uranium. Do you think Iran has
the capability to produce nuclear weapons?
MK: Yes, definitely!
Q: Are you saying that Iran already has nuclear weapons?
MK: I said that they have the “capability” to produce them .
. . this is a very complex process.
Q: Back to the Middle East nuclear-free-zone and the postponed
Helsinki conference. Do you think that such a conference
will ever take place?
MK: Yes, I do believe so.
Q: With a specific, legally binding, and an applicable outcome?
MK: I believe something will happen . . . I mean a breakthrough
like what occurred after the Second World War.
Q: Such a breakthrough would really imply the elimination
of all nukes in the Middle East, including Israeli atomic
arsenal? How realistic is this?
MK: I think so. Realistic? Who did expect all those major
changes that happened after the Second World War, particularly
in Europe?
*Baher Kamal is an Egyptian-born Spanish national with
nearly 40 years of professional experience as a journalist.
He is Publisher and Director of Human Wrongs Watch,
Spain. [IDN-| May 3, 2013]
In a dramatic act that signalled its frustration with the “unilateral postponement” of an
agreed 2012 Conference on the Middle East, Ambassador Hisham Badr announced his delegation’s
walk-out “to protest this unacceptable and continuous failure to implement the
1995 Middle East Resolution” and “send a strong message of dissatisfaction with the lack of
seriousness in dealing with the issue of establishing a zone free of nuclear weapons, a central
component of regional, Arab and Egyptian national security, which impacts directly international
peace and security”. Amid mounting frustration, the walk-out occurred towards
the end of the debate on the Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction (MEW-
MDFZ) on April 29, 2013. Though diplomats from the Arab States were initially as taken
aback as the rest of the Conference, the walk-out did not come as a big surprise. Badr had
reminded delegates that the Arab Group had seriously considered “whether we should be
attending this meeting in the first place”. – Rebecca Johnson in Open Democracy
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