The second session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) kicked off in Geneva on July 22, chaired by Akan Rakhmetullin, First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The statements issued by the U.S., Russia, and Belarus jointly, and by an NGO coalition of anti-nuclear and peace groups, show how the goal of nuclear disarmament enshrined in the NPT is still far from being realized more than 50 years after the treaty entered into force.
The U.S. statement, presented by Ambassador Adam Scheinman, Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation, characterized the NPT as having put into place a global system of nuclear restraint, but, “Today, that system of nuclear restraint is being tested,” he said. He then followed with the usual litany of accusations against Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China.
Belarus and Russia accused the U.S. and its NATO allies of creating a condition within the system of international security that “in no way encourages disarmament activities,” as called for in Article VI of the NPT, reported TASS. Among the factors that create a “negative atmosphere hampering any progress” on this track, Moscow and Minsk cited, in particular, NATO’s expansion to the detriment of Russia’s and Belarus’s security, NATO countries’ hostile actions fraught with risks of a direct armed conflict between nuclear powers, and Washington’s attempts “to achieve decisive military superiority in a bid to secure unchallenged global dominance.” They also referenced the deployment of the U.S. global missile defense system amid stockpiling high-precision non-nuclear long-range weapons, the plans to deploy weapons in outer space, and plans to place shorter- and intermediate-range missiles in various parts of the world.
