You probably didn't notice (there was no press coverage in the U.S.) that the five stans (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) finally signed the treaty to set up the Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (CANWFZ) this past September. After four years of dithering by France, the United Kingdom and the United States about whether or not they'd sign a protocol to guarantee that they would not use nuclear weapons to attack these countries, the stans decided not to wait any longer and just went ahead and did it. The U.S., for its part, didn't even send a representative to the signing ceremony. So much for our commitment to non-proliferation.
Actually, when you consider that Kazakhstan was a major testing gound for nuclear weapons when it was still part of the Soviet Union, the CANWFZ doesn't just address proliferation, it signals a reduction. As the Arms Control Association points out
The treaty breaks new ground, however, in that each of the Central Asian states has also agreed to adhere to an additional protocol to their International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreements. Based on the 1997 Model Additional Protocol, such agreements give the agency greater ability to verify that non-nuclear-weapon states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) only use nuclear materials and facilities for peaceful purposes.
In another new step, the CANWFZ also requires member-states to meet international standards for the physical protection of nuclear materials.
The Central Asian states have been seeking to construct the nuclear-weapon-free zone, the first in the Northern Hemisphere, for nearly 10 years. Talks began soon after Kazakhstan renounced nuclear weapons. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, newly independent Kazakhstan inherited more than 1,400 nuclear warheads, a larger arsenal than any of the NPT nuclear-weapon states except for Russia and the United States.
Not only does the U.S. failure to sign on to this effort suggest that concerns about the spread of nuclear weapons are not genuine, the objection it raised to an earlier version of the treaty which contemplated the addition of other countries to the zone, is almost inexplicable.
The United States, as well as the United Kingdom and France, were worried about a provision in the treaty providing for the possible expansion of the nuclear-weapon-free zone to neighboring states. This would mean, for instance, that Iran could apply to join the zone, perhaps complicating efforts to constrain the country’s nuclear program. The provision was removed from the treaty, thereby limiting the zone to the five signatories.
What a weird perspective! If a country voluntarily restrains its nuclear development program to peaceful uses for energy production and medical research, that's objectionable? Is it because "efforts to constrain" are more important than voluntary limits? That's
the only way the U.S. position makes sense; if the control of nuclear programs in other countries is more important than their actual development and use.
Since Egypt had already signed on to the concept, it looks like a grand opportunity is being missed here--the possibility of extending this nuclear weapons free zone (there are actually four others, mostly in the Southern hemisphere) to encompass the entire Middle East, including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and the Arab states. Of course, since Israel generally refuses to admit its status as a nuclear-weapons state, the associated inspection component by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would require some time to work out, but wouldn't it be worth it?
A Sept. 21 statement from the U.S. embassy in Kazakhstan expressed Washington’s concern that "provisions of other international treaties could take precedence over the provisions of this treaty, and thus obviate the central objective of creating a zone free of nuclear weapons."
Considering the Bush/Cheney Administration's general disregard for the rule of law, this reference to treaty obligations and precedent seems both gratuitous and specious. On the other hand, since the treaty being referred to is the Tashkent Collective Security Treaty with Russia, it suggests that Cold War thinking is still making some people in Washington overly suspicious.
But then, suspicion seems to be the coin of the day, based not on what others might do, but what the U.S. itself intends--perhaps to relocate it's own nuclear arsenal from Western Europe, where it's no longer needed or wanted, to the Middle East, closer to the "region" of interest Rumsfeld and now Gates keep referencing.
The intent, by the only country to maintain nuclear weapons on foreign soil, to redeploy missile defense components further east would also explain the U.S objection to an earlier provision in the treaty that would have outlawed the transit of nuclear weapons through the CANWFZ, including the air space of the countries signing on. While this provision has now been replaced with a state by state permitting process, why would the U.S. even care that nuclear weapons can't be shipped through the zone, if it didn't intend to do so itself? If Russia and China were agreeable to honoring this nuclear weapons free buffer, why not the United States? (That France and the United Kingdom sided with the United States doesn't really count because they're simply hiding under the NATO nuclear umbrella maintained by the United States).
It was announced the other day that China does not trust the United States Secretary of State. Their experience with the CANWFZ may be one reason why.