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Nuclear treaty conferees
face daunting questions

Representatives of 187 countries assembled yesterday in New York for a monthlong conference to review the working of the NPT, an international treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

The treaty, which came into force in 1970, obligates the five acknowledged nuclear weapon states -- America, Russia, China, France and England -- not to transfer nuclear weapons or their technology to any non-nuclear weapon state.

Though it is a periodic review of the treaty done every five years, this conference is of particular importance because it has before it three of the most burning issues of the day: North Korea, Iran and a man named A.Q. Khan, who is the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and whom former Secretary of State Colin Powell described as "the world's worst proliferator of nuclear materials."

When the NPT opened for signatures in 1968, all but four countries signed it. The four that refused to sign were India, Pakistan, Israel and Cuba. None of these countries has signed it even today.

India is known to be willing to sign it provided the Bush administration drops its insistence that India first gave up its nuclear weapons. The Indians argue that if China, Britain, France and the United States can retain their nuclear weapons and yet be signatories, why not India? It is assumed that Pakistan also shares this view. So one way to make India and Pakistan join the treaty would be for Washington to accept them as nuclear weapon states. But there is little possibility of that happening and India and Pakistan are not likely to give up their nuclear weapons anytime soon. So we have a stalemate there.

Cuba is not of much concern because it has no nuclear weapons nor any nuclear weapons program in place. Israel neither denies nor accepts that it has nuclear weapons. It is, however, widely believed to be in possession of such weapons.

North Korea, though indulging in saber rattling, is not that much of a worry right now because even though experts believe that it has already developed and is in possession of several nuclear weapons, it is basically haggling for concessions and money before it accepts the demands of the world community to give up its nuclear ambitions. North Korea has two basic demands: a guarantee from the United States that it will not be attacked, and a nice package of economic aid. And for this North Korea wants one-on-one talks with the United States and not in a multinational setting as suggested by Washington.

Iran is a major worry for several reasons. Though Iran denies that it has any plans to acquire nuclear weapons, America is not convinced. Israelis say they are absolutely certain that Iran is working on a nuclear weapons program.

Iran is an Islamist state and is sworn to the destruction of Israel. It is also a sponsor of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and has missile capability of delivering atomic weapons to Israel and even Europe.

Perhaps even more serious than the threat from Iran is the threat posed by A.Q. Khan and his proliferating activities. That he gave nuclear know-how to Iran and North Korea is now public knowledge. But despite Khan's interrogation by Pakistani authorities, the full extent of his activities is not yet known and Pakistan won't let the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency question him directly.

Even the known range of Khan's activities is quite alarming. For example, two Pakistani scientists close to Khan have admitted they talked to Osama bin Laden in October 2000. Given the fact that al-Qaida has made repeated efforts to obtain nuclear materials to build a bomb, Khan's contact with al-Qaida is the stuff of nightmares.

Some of the best minds in the business will examine this and related questions at the NPT conference in New York. Hopefully, they will have some good answers.

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