Russia blocked a deal last Friday during the tenth review conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), mainly due to issues related to the invasion of Ukraine and the takeover of the Zaporizhzhya plant. .
After nearly a month of discussions and after extending the last day for several hours in search of consensus, the conference ended without approving its final document due to Russian objections.
The Moscow delegation was the only one that took the floor in the final session to oppose the last draft presented by the president of the conference, the Argentine Gustavo Zlauvinen, that the other 191 signatory countries of the NPT were willing to accept.
Russia commented that, of the entire lengthy document, it only had problems with five paragraphs that it considered “politicized”.
Although it did not indicate specifically which, according to diplomatic sources, the disagreement in recent hours has centered on mentions of the situation in Ukrainian power station in Zaporizhzhya and the need to return it to the competent authorities.
This facility, the largest atomic power plant in Europe, was taken over by Russian troops at the beginning of the war and in recent days has been targeted of repeated attacks – for which Moscow and Kiev are accused -, which raised alarms in the face of a possible disaster.
The broad final declaration that was being negotiated as the conclusion of the conference revised the application of the NPT and set priorities for the future at a time when the UN itself warns that the risk of a nuclear conflict is at the highest point in decades.
“We find ourselves at a moment in history when that our world is increasingly plagued by conflict and, more alarmingly, by the growing prospect of the unthinkable: a nuclear war. At this time, it is imperative that we seek to amplify what unites us, not what divides us,” the conference president declared minutes before Russia blocked the text.
Although the war in Ukraine has made this particularly complicated meeting is not the first time that the periodic review of the NPT has ended without consensus, as happened in the last edition, held seven years ago.
