South Africa: To Shine Light On Bomb's Shadow

opinion

Johannesburg — IT IS now more than 15 years since SA renounced its nuclear weapons programme and signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It was a brave and historic decision. That decision, and SA's key role on the United Nations Security Council and its leadership of the Nonaligned Movement, means that this country has a unique part to play as the international community confronts the issue of nuclear proliferation. And today the nuclear nonproliferation regime is under pressure. We have already seen the emergence of a mixture of further declared and undeclared nuclear powers. And now, two countries -- Iran and North Korea, both signatories of the nonproliferation treaty -- remain in open defiance of the international community. Each of them raises the serious prospect of proliferation across their respective regions. Terrorists have declared their willingness to use nuclear material. And we have to make sure countries can generate electricity from nuclear fuel, while strengthening the safeguards that will stop nuclear materials or nuclear know-how falling into the wrong hands.

Those are serious challenges, but there is no reason to believe that we cannot rise to them. Despite the recent logjam, the basic nonproliferation consensus is still remarkably resilient. But if we want results on nonproliferation, we will need to show much more ambition and action on nuclear disarmament. Those who currently have nuclear weapons have to be serious about a world free of nuclear weapons. The majority of countries -- those whose support is vital to the international consensus on nonproliferation -- want and expect those states to do more to fulfil our obligations under the treaty. If we do not, potential proliferators will try to use our disagreements to their advantage.

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