Annan urges nuclear concessions

UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan challenged the United States and Russia on Monday to slash their nuclear arsenals irreversibly to just hundreds of warheads, and urged nonweapons states like Iran to give up potential bomb technology in return for international guarantees of nuclear fuel.

The U.N. atomic energy chief followed with an offer to begin work on a system of international fuel supplies.

The two spoke at the opening of a monthlong conference to review the workings of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The session comes at a time of mounting nuclear tensions over North Korea's withdrawal from the 189-nation pact and Iran's program to enrich uranium, a possible step toward a bomb.

"Developments of many kinds in recent years have placed it under great stress," Annan said of the treaty.

The United States wants the review conference to focus heavily on North Korea, Iran and the nuclear fuel issue. But many states without nuclear arms want equal emphasis on what they see as a softening commitment by the big powers to nuclear disarmament.

Under the 35-year-old NPT, states without nuclear arms pledge not to pursue them, in exchange for a commitment by five nuclear powers -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China -- to move toward nuclear disarmament.

The NPT is reviewed every five years at conferences whose consensus political commitments are not legally binding, like a treaty, but give valuable support to nonproliferation initiatives. At the 2000 sessions, the nuclear powers committed to "13 practical steps" toward disarmament, but critics complain the Bush administration -- by rejecting the nuclear test-ban treaty, for example -- has come up short.

All nations must work toward "a world of reduced nuclear threat and, ultimately, a world free of nuclear weapons," Annan told delegates in his keynote speech.

The nuclear powers must find ways to rely less on nuclear deterrence, the U.N. chief said, and he called on Washington and Moscow "to commit themselves -- irreversibly -- to further cuts in their arsenals, so that warheads number in the hundreds, not the thousands."

Under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, the United States and Russia are to cut back their deployed warheads by two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200 each, by 2012. But the agreement has been criticized for not requiring destruction of excess warheads, or providing a transparent timetable and open verification of reductions.

The Iran question hinges on the NPT's Article IV, which guarantees nonweapons states the right to peaceful nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment equipment to produce fuel for nuclear power plants.

That same technology, with further enrichment, can produce material for nuclear bombs, and the United States alleges that's what Iran plans -- a charge Tehran denies.

Annan said states such as Iran "must not insist" on possessing such sensitive technology, but instead should have access internationally to nuclear fuel.

Following Annan to the U.N. podium, Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, renewed his call for a moratorium on new fuel-cycle facilities while international controls are negotiated. He offered, meanwhile, to investigate ways to guarantee international fuel supplies for those who need them.

ElBaradei has proposed putting nuclear fuel production under multilateral control by regional or international bodies. President Bush proposes an outright ban on nuclear fuel technology except in the United States and the dozen other countries that have it. Neither idea has generated widespread support.

The Tehran government is negotiating on and off with Germany, France and Britain about shutting down its enrichment operations in return for economic incentives. After the latest round failed to produce agreement Friday, the Iranians said they would probably restart enrichment-related operations this week.

North Korea, which pulled out of the NPT in 2003, said in February it has already built nuclear weapons. The review conference is not expected to focus on this first NPT defector, in order not to complicate efforts, via now-suspended six-party talks, to draw Pyongyang back into the treaty fold.