U.N. Official Concerned over Possible Hollowing-Out of NPT

Tokyo, April 10 (Jiji Press)–High-ranking U.N. official Izumi Nakamitsu voiced concern Friday that “hollowing-out” of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, may begin if no outcome document is adopted once again at an NPT review conference in New York from April 27. The two previous review conferences broke down and failed to adopt final documents. At a press conference in Tokyo, Nakamitsu, U.N. undersecretary-general and high representative for disarmament affairs, said people may think that the treaty is “nothing more than just words on paper.” Referring to the increasing number of nuclear warheads in the world and the expiration earlier this year of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, between the United States and Russia, Nakamitsu said, “The world is going toward armament expansion rather than nuclear disarmament, both qualitatively and quantitatively.” “The NPT review conference will come amid a host of challenges,” such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile launches and tensions in the Middle East. “In the past few months, we have sorted out priorities and concerns among signatory countries,” in collaboration with Vietnam, the chair of the review conference, Nakamitsu added. “Although generating an ambitious outcome might be difficult, the meeting needs to deliver some kind of outcome document, even if it might be short, so that the NPT will not weaken further,” she stressed, saying that signatory nations share concerns about the treaty’s possible hollowing-out. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]