Tag: 2023

The United Kingdom supports the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in calling for the restoration of constitutional order and democracy in Niger. We welcome the determination of ECOWAS to pursue all means to bring about a peaceful resolution. We stand in support of democracy in Niger.

We stand with ECOWAS in condemnation of the illegal detention of President Mohamed Bazoum, his family, and members of the government, as well as the unacceptable conditions under which they are being held, and call for their immediate release.

Let me congratulate you in your election as Chair of Main Committee 2 and assure you of my delegation’s full and active support.

Madam Chair, the NPT is primarily a treaty designed to stem the threat posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons. This is set out clearly in Article 3, and informs the undertakings in Articles 4 to 7. Since 1970, the NPT has been very successful in curtailing the nuclear arms race and so contributing to a safer and more stable world. We regret that Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine threatens this stability.

The threat of nuclear proliferation persists. We, as States Parties to the NPT, must work to reduce this threat by strengthening the non-proliferation architecture, combating programmes of concern and building trust between regional neighbours.

Madam Chair, the IAEA plays a crucial role in the context of the NPT, and the robust safeguards regime it operates has been responsible for much of the NPT’s success. The demand for safeguards continues to increase and the IAEA needs continued financial support to undertake its crucial mission. The UK will continue to support the Agency and champion an effective and efficient safeguards system.

We believe that a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement plus an Additional Protocol should be the universal verification standard and that which best fulfils Article 3 of the Treaty. The UK welcomes the 6 states that have brought a CSA into force, and the 14 states that have adopted Additional Protocols since 2015. We call on all states, which have not yet done so, to sign and bring into force a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol as soon as possible. The UK is ready to provide assistance to states in bringing Additional Protocols into force. We also call upon states with original Small Quantities Protocols to either amend or rescind them. Our firm support for the continued evolution of the safeguards system persists with the aim to make it more robust, efficient and responsive to contemporary challenges, as exemplified by the development of the state level concept. We hope that the Review Conference will support the IAEA’s progressive implementation of state level safeguards approaches.

The Agency must be allowed to conduct its safeguards verification activities fully and safely. We again urge Russia to comply with the IAEA Board of Governors resolution of 3 March and immediately withdraw its troops from Ukraine’s internationally-recognised borders, including all nuclear facilities; and restore full control of these facilities to the relevant Ukrainian authorities.

We remain deeply concerned by the unprecedented steps Iran has taken to accelerate the pace of its nuclear programme over the past three years, in violation of the JCPoA. Iran’s nuclear programme is now more advanced than at any point in the past. Iran’s continued nuclear escalation is a threat to international peace and security and risks undermining the global non-proliferation regime. Intensive diplomatic efforts to restore the JCPoA have resulted in a viable deal being on the table since early March. We regret that up until now Iran has refused to seize this diplomatic opportunity and has continued its nuclear escalation. We call on Iran to stop and reverse its nuclear escalation, return to full cooperation with the IAEA and accept without further delay the offer on the table, which would benefit the Iranian people and nation. Furthermore, Iran remains under investigation by the IAEA regarding outstanding safeguards issues relating to Iran’s obligations under its NPT required safeguards agreement. This issue has been long outstanding and the overwhelming majority vote at the June 2022 IAEA Board of Governors meeting sends an unambiguous message to Iran that it must urgently meet its safeguards obligations and provide technically credible clarifications to the IAEA. We welcome the independent, professional and impartial efforts of the IAEA to uphold the international safeguards system in this case, which is essential to everyone’s security, and urge Iran to meet its legal obligations and cooperate with the IAEA without further delay.

The UK remains committed to securing peace on the Korean Peninsula and we are clear that the DPRK’s nuclear and weapons programmes must be dismantled. The DPRK continues to threaten international security through its illegal nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. We also note that the DPRK continues to restore its nuclear test site, and are concerned by activity suggesting a possible nuclear test. We support the diplomatic efforts of the US and our regional partners to secure peace on the Korean Peninsula and preserve regional stability. The UK calls on all UN member states to fully implement and enforce all UN Security Council sanctions. We urge North Korea to return to dialogue, return to the NPT and IAEA safeguards, and to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.

The UK remains concerned with Syria’s ongoing non-compliance, now over a decade old, with its nuclear safeguards obligations. We urge Syria to cooperate fully with the IAEA by providing access to the information, documentation, sites, material and personnel in Syria that the IAEA has requested.

The UK will focus on efforts to enhance international nuclear security – essential to an effective non-proliferation system. Effective nuclear security means preventing terrorists and non-state actors accessing nuclear material by ensuring all states adhere to their obligations, commitments and established good practice. While nuclear security is a national responsibility it cannot be achieved unilaterally. The UK is working to ensure that international nuclear security agreements and guidelines are robust, continue to evolve to meet new threats and technologies, and are implemented by as many states as possible. The Ministerial Declaration of the IAEA’s 2020 International Conference on Nuclear Security shows the global support for nuclear security, the IAEA’s central role, and the need for all states to meet their obligations. This Review Conference should endorse this Declaration.

We welcome that the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and its Amendment Review Conference successfully took place in March and achieved consensus on an outcome document. The Convention and its Amendment remains the only legally binding international agreement for the protection of nuclear facilities and materials. The UK will work to ensure that international agreements and guidelines are as robust as possible, and ratified and implemented by as many countries as possible.

Export controls enable access to nuclear technology while minimising the risks of proliferation. The United Kingdom actively supports the efforts of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the Zangger Committee in working towards minimising nuclear proliferation while ensuring that states are able to access nuclear technology for peaceful uses. We provide both secretarial and technical support to the Zangger Committee and are active in all meetings of the NSG. In 2019, we reviewed our interpretation of NSG guidelines and strengthened our controls on re-export of UK items through the ongoing exchange of government-to-government assurances. We call on all states to adhere to the NSG’s Guidelines and to ensure that these are taken into consideration when making decisions on nuclear and nuclear-related exports.

I would like to address the new enhanced trilateral security partnership between the UK, Australia and the US. The UK, Australia and the US take our obligations under the NPT extremely seriously. This partnership is fully consistent with our international obligations, and we are engaging with the IAEA as the Director-General remarked on at the June Board of Governors, to ensure that the precedent set by Australia’s acquisition of conventionally-armed nuclear-powered submarines strengthens the global non-proliferation regime. We will continue our open engagement and transparency in this endeavour and in that spirit, we have offered a working paper to this conference.

Robust safeguards, security and nuclear safety remain key to the success of the nuclear industry and an enabler to support the peaceful uses of nuclear around the world. The UK has signed several Nuclear Cooperation Agreements in the last few years, and we ensure that these Agreements include important provisions relating to non-proliferation, including safeguards.

Madam Chair, we continue to urge all non-NPT states to sign and ratify the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states as soon as possible in order to reach universality. In the meantime, we will work to bring those states closer to the international non-proliferation mainstream, and we urge all states parties to consider constructively how we can achieve this.

While the vast majority of NPT Parties fully comply with their safeguards obligations, there are current unresolved issues.

Madam Chair, in line with Article 7, the United Kingdom supports the creation of nuclear weapon free zones, wherever states of that region are able to agree arrangements. In this regard, we recall and wholeheartedly support the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East and the goal of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. We observed the UN Conferences on a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in 2019 and 2021 to demonstrate that commitment; we remain convinced that progress can only be achieved with the consensus of all the states of the region. The UK remains ready to sign the Protocol of the Treaty of Bangkok, with a declaration aligned to our national negative security assurances.

Madam Chair, it is the UK’s hope that the Review Conference can both consolidate and strengthen the measures taken to ensure the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and demonstrate the continued value and utility of the NPT at a time where the strategic context makes this more important than ever.

Vice Chair, the UK is committed to pursuing negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear disarmament, and to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. We reaffirm our unequivocal undertaking, alongside the other Nuclear Weapon States, to accomplish the total elimination of our nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States Parties are committed under Article 6.

The NPT has created the framework that has enabled the significant reductions in the global stockpile of nuclear weapons. The UK is proud of its track record and contribution to the overall reductions in the global stockpile of all types of nuclear weapons. Since the end of the Cold War, the UK has approximately halved its stockpile and has the smallest arsenal of the Nuclear Weapon States. The UK dismantled our tactical and air-delivered nuclear weapons, becoming the only Nuclear Weapon State to reduce to a single platform, a single delivery system and a single design of warhead. UK nuclear weapons are not on high alert, nor are they on a ‘launch on warning’ status. The patrol submarine operates routinely at a ‘notice to fire’ measured in days, rather than in minutes. Since May 1994, patrol submarines’ missiles have been de-targeted.

However, we cannot escape the fact that the security environment has deteriorated significantly since 2015. The UK and its Allies face a growing number of challenges, including from major nuclear-armed states and from emerging nuclear states, some of whom are significantly increasing and diversifying their nuclear arsenals, investing in novel nuclear technologies, and developing new ‘warfighting’ nuclear systems which they are integrating into their military strategies and doctrines, and into their political rhetoric, to seek to coerce others. The increase in global competition, challenges to the multilateral order, and proliferation of potentially disruptive technologies all pose a threat to strategic stability.

As a result, it has not proved possible to further reduce the UK’s nuclear weapon stockpile, as we had hoped. Instead, the UK’s Integrated Review announced an increase in the limit of our stockpile from 225 warheads to no more than 260. This is a ceiling, not a target, and is not our stockpile number. While nuclear weapons exist, the UK will maintain a minimum, but also a credible, independent nuclear deterrent, to protect ourselves and our NATO allies from the most extreme threats. Maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent capability at this level, taking into account the international environment, is fully consistent with our international legal obligations, including those under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The role of nuclear weapons in our doctrine has not increased, and nor have our capabilities.

Vice Chair, the Integrated Review also recommitted the UK to the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The UK considers disarmament to be a process as well as an end-state achievement, best achieved through a gradual, negotiated, step-by-step approach within existing international frameworks, in line with the security environment. The UK’s vision of the path is set out in our working paper no.35 entitled ‘Getting to a world without nuclear weapons’. It reaffirms the steps we can take now, including bringing the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty into force, and commencing negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty.

We must pursue serious work on transparency, verification and irreversibility, the 3 principles which underpin our collective work on disarmament.

The UK is taking forward work on both technical and non-technical verification challenges. For example, the Atomic Weapons Establishment is carrying out ground-breaking research; and we participate in a range of global initiatives including the International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification and Quad Nuclear Verification Partnership. We have written a working paper on the UK’s verification programme and co-authored a paper with Quad colleagues.

The UK has co-authored a paper with Norway on the principle of irreversibility, how it has been understood and where further work can be taken forward. The UK will shortly commence new research in partnership with other states on how the principle of irreversibility can be applied to support disarmament. We will remain committed on this agenda by sponsoring further meetings and conferences.

The UK continues to champion transparency, both in terms of improving trust and building confidence, and to provide accountability as to the implementation of our Treaty obligations and other commitments. The UK has written a working paper on this, underlining that transparency is a fundamental principle underpinning nuclear disarmament.

The working papers that the UK and our partners have submitted include recommendations for the Review Conference. And next Wednesday, Norway and the UK will host a side event on irreversibility in nuclear disarmament and next Thursday, with Quad partners, we will be hosting an event on verification.

Finally, our ‘path ahead’ paper also sets out the challenges of moving from small numbers of nuclear weapons to complete and total disarmament in ways that enhance national and international security. We must address together the many complex political, military and technical issues which will need to be resolved if the states which possess nuclear weapons are to reduce and ultimately eliminate their arsenals securely, and to prevent nuclear weapons from ever re-emerging.

We stand by the commitment we made in January 2022 in the joint statement of the leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races. We condemn Russia’s unprovoked and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine launched just 6 weeks later and its irresponsible, unjustified use of nuclear rhetoric and signalling, which undermines the credibility of Russia’s commitment to this joint statement and international law. We urge Russia to behave responsibly, exercise restraint and return to international nuclear norms.

We consider the reduction of strategic risks as one of our foremost responsibilities. And, the UK, alongside France and the US, has submitted a working paper on the principles and responsible practices for Nuclear Weapon States (PDF, 141KB), which sets out the ways in which our governments are working to implement the leaders’ statement.

The UK hopes this Review Conference can reach a common understanding on the importance of strategic risk reduction, and specific steps we can take to progress it. We stand by the P5 Process working paper, which acknowledges that risk reduction is consistent with the NPT’s goals and is not a replacement for disarmament efforts.

Vice Chair, past Review Conferences have consistently recognised the legitimate interest of non-nuclear weapon States in receiving unequivocal security assurances from nuclear weapon States. Let me take this opportunity to reiterate that the UK will not use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against any Non-Nuclear Weapon State party to the NPT. This assurance does not apply to any state in material breach of their non-proliferation obligations. The UK, France and the United States, have released a joint statement reaffirming our existing national security assurances and our commitment to these.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine violates the security assurances it gave Ukraine in 1994 and undermine the credibility of its negative security assurances. This should be a matter of concern to all NPT States Parties. Finally, Mr Chair, let me assure you and the Committee that the UK will remain at the forefront of global efforts towards a safer and more stable world, where countries with nuclear weapons are able to relinquish them in a way that enhances security for all. We will work constructively and actively at this Review Conference to make progress towards our collective goal of a world without nuclear weapons.