The conference began on May 2 without an agenda due to a dispute over how to refer to the decisions of previous review conferences.  The United States led limited opposition to including any references to those conferences, as the Bush administration does not support many of the decisions made in 1995 and 2000.  The majority of treaty states wanted such language included as a way of reaffirming support for the disarmament and nonproliferation commitments made as part of the package of decisions that allowed for the indefinite extension of the pact in 1995.

The compromise called for removing from the agenda all references to previous conferences and reading into the record a presidential statement that addressed, in a general manner, those issues.  The agenda now says simply, “Review of the operation of the treaty.”

Conference President Sergio Duarte of Brazil yesterday read into the record the statement: “It is understood that the review will be conducted in the light of the decisions and the resolution of the previous conferences, and allow for discussion of any issue raised by states parties.”  This statement has been added as a footnote to the agenda.

“The resolution” is a reference to the resolution from the 1995 review conference endorsing negotiations for a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

Egyptian Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz, who led the campaign for the more inclusive language, said yesterday that delegates “didn’t want to stall the conference.” However, they also wanted acknowledgement of the 1995 decisions. 

If not, “we would be letting go of the whole thing. … We cannot accept this.  So it is that spirit that we are defending, and at the same time we do not want to let go of the 2000 review conference outcome,” he said. 

The final document of the 2000 conference includes a series of specific disarmament steps, including entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and reductions in nonstrategic nuclear weapons.

“From the very beginning, we have witnessed an attempt to bypass the year 2000 review outcome.  There are certain things in that 2000 outcome that others do not like, so they wanted to bypass them,” Abdelaziz said before the agenda was finalized.

He added, “Our concerns are how to preserve the document of 2000 and build on it in 2005.” 

The delegates are meeting today in closed session to organize the next phase of their work.  In past review conferences, there have been three main committees — on disarmament, nonproliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear power — organized according to the various articles of the treaty.  There are also proposals for subsidiary bodies to deal with regional issues, particularly the Middle East, proposed guarantees by nuclear states not to use atomic weapons against non-nuclear states and other issues. All these proposals are contentious and are not likely to be resolved quickly. The review conference is scheduled to continue through May 27.