nuclear-news

“They commit not to attack them with nuclear weapons or to threaten them with nuclear weapons and also respect the other [treaty] provisions” banning the deployment or testing of atomic arms in Central Asia, said nonproliferation expert Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, who is attending the Preparatory Committee meeting in New York City where the announcement was made by the five powers.

The Central Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone commits its signatories — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — to refrain from developing, acquiring or possessing nuclear weapons. The treaty entered into force in 2009 without the world’s formally recognized nuclear-armed countries — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — agreeing to abide by its limits.

It took five years of “intensive consultations” for the five powers to agree to sign a protocol to the Central Asian treaty, according to Mukhatzhanova, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

“It’s certainly one of the bigger news [items] so far” to come out of the Preparatory Committee meeting, Mukhatzhanova said in a Tuesday phone interview. The so-called “PrepCom” gathering is being held in advance of next year’s Review Conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Peter Jones, director of defense and international security at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in astatement to the meeting said the United Kingdom was “delighted” to demonstrate its “commitment to legally binding negative security assurances by signing a protocol” to the treaty.

Moscow in its statement said it wished to sign the protocol “as soon as possible.” Washington similarly expressed its anticipation for inking the text.

Mukhatzhanova said she believed any signing ceremony at the meeting would take place in private, with the five powers submitting the treaty to their respective legislative bodies for ratification at a later date.

An agreement by the five powers to sign the pact had been held up for years, due to problems that London, France and particularly Washington had with some of the accord’s language, she said. The specific point of contention dealt with Article 12, which states that the agreement “does not affect the rights and obligations of the parties under other [pre-existing] international treaties.”…….http://www.nationaljournal.com/global-security-newswire/five-powers-agree-to-respect-central-asian-nuclear-free-zone-20140430