Why is Pakistan stalling on disarmament?

Last week, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon took Pakistan to the diplomatic equivalent of the woodshed, organizing a high-level New York disarmament conference where foreign ministers and other dignitaries excoriated Islamabad for blocking international negotiations aimed at banning the production of nuclear weapons fuel.

Ban’s decision to convene the conference reflected widespread frustration that Pakistan has paralyzed one of the world’s principal arms control forums, the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, at a time when the United States is showing a renewed interest in striking new disarmament deals there. Pakistan, which did not speak at the New York meeting, maintains that it needs to reserve the right to produce nuclear weapons fuel to catch up with its atomic rival, India, which it believes possesses a larger stockpile.

In response to Pakistan’s blocking action at the Conference on Disarmament (CD), the United States and several other states said last week that it may be time to bypass the Geneva-based arms control forum, which has negotiated some of the most important arms control treaties, including the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.  The disarmament conference, which has 65 member states, has not held formal negotiations in 12 years. But in his landmark April, 2009, Prague speech on nuclear disarmament, President Obama sought to revive the negotiating forum, calling for the resumption of negations on a Fissile Material Cut Treaty (FMCT).

A month later, the conference approved a work program in May 2009 to begin negotiations on the FMCT, and to begin talks on other issues including nuclear disarmament, the prohibition of nuclear weapons in outer space, and on the provision of assurances not to launch a nuclear strike against non-nuclear powers. But Pakistan has single-handedly blocked negotiations.

"We were ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work on the complicated and difficult negotiations for an FMCT," Gary Samore, President Obama’s special assistant on nuclear disarmament, told the U.N. conference Friday. "Unfortunately, it was not to be. Instead, a single country — a good friend of the United States — changed its mind and has blocked the CD from implementing its work plan."

The idea of a treaty banning the production of fissile material — or nuclear weapon fuel– dates back to the early days of the U.S. and Soviet atomic arms race. The United States, Russia, Britain and France have already announced that they have stopped the production of fissile material, according to Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. Kimball said that China, and Israel, are also believed to have stopped production of fissile material, but have not announced it. But Pakistan and India are believed to be continuing their production of it. "Pakistan is adamant. They continue producing fissile material because they feel they are behind the Indians," he said.

The advantage of negotiating a treaty within the U.N. Conference on Disarmament is that it is the only arms control body that brings together all of the world’s nuclear powers. But ten states — Australia, Austria, Norway, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United States, and Uruguay — have said publicly that the time is nearing to try something new, either by abandoning the conference’s current form or beginning negotiations in the U.N. General Assembly.

"If we cannot begin these negotiations in the CD, then we will need to consider other options," Samore said. "In any event, it is time to get back to work. The treaty is too important to allow the CD’s dysfunction and the interests of one state to dictate the pace of progress on disarmament."

Follow me on Twitter @columlynch