NPT Review Conference Follies II

Jeffrey Lewis 0:08

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:23

And I'm Aaron Stein, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, a doctoral fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, and a nonresident fellow at the Rafiq Hariri Center with the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C.,

Jeffrey 0:36

The 2015 review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, known among wonks as the REVCON, collapsed in acrimony. If that sounds familiar, that's because it is. Last week, we talked with Andrea Berger about the debate in New York over disarmament and a long-planned conference on a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East. Joining us for part two of NPT REVCON Follies is my colleague at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova.

Gauhar is the director of the International Organizations and Nonproliferation Program. One of the things I wanted to ask you about, just to start off with, is to talk a little bit about IONP and your role at the review conference, because I think one of the cool things about CNS, which makes us really weird, is we actually place people on delegations.

So we're not, I mean, we're an NGO, but you weren't there as an NGO. You were on a delegation, right? I was. Which delegation?

Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova 1:33

Well, let me talk a little bit about the INP role in general. And this is a long, long running engagement that CNS has with the NPT regime. And so our director has been going to NPT Rio conferences for a long time, also serving on the delegation as an advisor. Some of our students get to serve on the delegations of countries.

Sometimes it's something they do independently. Sometimes it's something that works through us. And Chile in particular has been very interested in having students participate as delegates with Chile. So that's really been a very interesting experience for those of us coming from the non-governmental world.

Jeffrey 2:13

Two of my students got out of two weeks of class so that they could go beyond on delegations.

Gaukhar 2:19

See, it's a very exciting opportunity. Yeah.

Jeffrey 2:22

Come get a master's. Anyway, you were saying, sorry.

Gaukhar 2:24

We also have students going as NGO observers, but usually they only come for about a week. Those who participate on the delegations, they stay longer.

Jeffrey 2:34

Yeah. And you were there the whole four weeks, which is a long time.

Gaukhar 2:37

Well, almost four weeks, yes. I was away for a couple of days.

Jeffrey 2:40

Yeah. So... I guess we should talk about disarmament and then talk about the weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East. What did you think about process? Because one of the questions that I have is the The way in which the parties got to language on disarmament seemed pretty rocky. And I'm trying to decide if that's because just substantively it was always going to be incredibly hard or if the process itself was not working the way that it should or could.

Gaukhar 3:14

The substance was the difficult part, I think. It was clear from fairly early on that this will be a very difficult conference because both of the Middle East and disarmament, it was clear there's a very significant disagreement among non-nuclear open states and also among non-nuclear open states about such issues as the Humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and also the role of the step-by-step approach to nuclear disarmament versus a more comprehensive approach and the effective measures that According to the New Agenda Coalition's proposal, should involve legally binding measures, like some kind of a new treaty or framework instrument.

So these things already set it up for an acrimonious sort of debate on disarmament. U.S.-Russian relations being what they are and sort of a breakdown in the arms control dialogue was also complicating things. So that made things difficult atmospherically and substantively. And I think that affected the process. And the process is not ideal regardless of which conference we're talking about.

It's, you know, you get together 100 and almost 90, not all the countries, not all the parties attend the review conferences. So let's say we have 180 something countries. You can't negotiate effectively with 180 people. So inevitably at some point it becomes a smaller group. And then you inevitably lose some of the transparency. But that's something that in previous years people were willing to accept because they felt sufficiently represented in those small groups, be it in 2000 or in 2010.

Aaron 4:57

I'm wondering if you can go into that a little bit more. The role, I think in this case, it was the Swiss ambassador who was in charge of corralling what was then the 180 countries that then came down to a smaller group of countries and how we moved along in this process to arrive at the final language that was used.

Gaukhar 5:14

So you have Main Committee 1, which deals with disarmament. And then there was a decision, sort of traditional by now, to have a subsidiary body 1 under that committee to also work on disarmament, but look at the forward-looking part. So Main Committee 1 works on the review, looking backwards, assessing how well the treaty was being implemented and specific action items from 2010 and earlier, whereas the subsidiary body 1 was looking more at the forward-looking part.

Looking more at the action for the next five years or beyond. So this is where you had the most disagreement, I think. Then they merged the documents from In-Committee 1 and Subsidiary Body 1 and tried to work on this unified report and still weren't getting anywhere near the agreement. And that's when the president of the review conference asked a group of, I don't know, 19, 20 countries to come to the Algerian mission and negotiate separately.

The language on nuclear disarmament. And my understanding is that Benelagno was leading that negotiation. That said, the document that came out on, what was it, Thursday morning, specifically the text on disarmament, was not a product of an agreement in that group. And it was made clear by the president and also by some of the delegations that participated that this was president's text or, you know, Or Ambassador Lugner's text for that matter.

I think they worked together. And therefore it was tabled on a sort of take it or leave it basis.

Jeffrey 6:47

And would you say that that text leaned closer to the views of the nuclear weapon states or some of the other groups? And I guess we should definitely talk about who the major blocks were since I gather NPT diplomacy has these very unusual groupings.

Aaron 7:01

Let me jump in there one second. And also, I'm just curious about sort of the dynamic within the nuclear weapons state, sort of who were the more hardliners or just more the softliners, for lack of a better term. So some of the nuance within that block.

Gaukhar 7:14

Well, let me start with the groupings. In the NPT, you have sort of two layers of groupings, I guess. One is the geographical groupings, and those are the really – Archaic arrangements of the Western European and others group, the Eastern European and others group, and the non-aligned group, which is the largest one. It's the members and observers of the non-aligned movement.

The Eastern European group consists of Russia and the former Warsaw Pact and the former Soviet Union. As you can imagine, a lot of these countries are now more aligned with the Western group, but they formally are still part of the Eastern European group. So beyond that, then you have sort of sub-regional or cross-regional groupings. You have, of course, the five nuclear weapon states who act together when they need to, but by no means a homogenous group.

Then you have the non-aligned acts together as a group. But within it, you will have more active sort of the Arab group. They focus on, of course, the Middle East, nuclear open free zone, WMD free zone. Latin American countries are very active there. You have the issue-based groupings like the New Agenda Coalition. They are focusing on disarmament specifically.

And the newest, I think, grouping is the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Initiative. This one is cross-regional. It's a lot of the U.S. allies, but also non-aligned countries. What else is there? The Vienna Group of Ten. I was amazed to find out not too long ago that they've been around for a long, long time, since 1980. There are actually 11 countries now, and they focus on the Vienna issues.

So it's safeguards, expert controls, nuclear safety, nuclear security, I guess, since that became a prominent topic. This year, you could also hear a lot from CELAC, and that's the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and from CARICOM. So you have a whole variety of groupings. And of course, the recent creation is also the humanitarian initiative. And that's a little bit difficult to distinguish because you have the 16 countries that were behind the original joint humanitarian statement.

But then now that has grown into a group of 159 states, but you still have that core group of countries who are active in the humanitarian initiative.

Jeffrey 9:44

Am I wrong? I mean, the way that I have thought of it is that you have the nuclear weapon states, at least on disarmament issues, you tend to have the nuclear weapon states. And then on the other side, there's a lot of the activity – I think of as occurring around the NPDI but then also the non-aligned movement.

And so is, is, would you say those are kind of the three key groupings or is there a subtlety or a nuance I'm missing? Because it's I guess it's important to have it kind of clear in our mind when when the president invites, say I think you said something like 19 or 20 countries I want to kind of understand the dynamics in that, that smaller group.

Gaukhar 10:27

Well, the one grouping you have to really talk about in terms of disarmament is the New Agenda Coalition. Disarmament is their primary focus, the only focus, and they have been active on it. They were instrumental to the outcome in the 2000 PT Review Conference, and they were, again, very prominent this year.

Jeffrey 10:48

And they aren't – it doesn't make sense to think of them as being, for all intents and purposes – Either allied with or close to NPDI or does?

Gaukhar 11:01

There is an overlap of one country. So Mexico is both in the New Agenda Coalition and NPDI. But otherwise, the New Agenda Coalition is very deliberately composed of countries that are not in any alliances with nuclear weapons states.

Jeffrey 11:14

It's like Brazil, Egypt, Ireland.

Gaukhar 11:15

It's Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa. Whereas in NPDI, you... Slovenia and Sweden. Slovenia joined for about five minutes at the formation of the New Agenda Coalition, but they were also joining NATO at the time, so they... They came under a little bit of pressure to choose their alliances.

Aaron 11:41

MPDI makes no sense to me because of some of the inclusion of the NATO allies, one of which comes to mind, that actually host tactical nuclear weapons. So MPDI makes no sense to me. Can you explain it to me?

Gaukhar 11:54

The core of MPDI is U.S. allies. Right. So it's a group formed, it was initiated by Australia and Japan in 2010 after the conclusion of the 2010 review conference. And then they have countries like Turkey and the Netherlands and Germany, all of whom clearly are US allies and most of whom also host nuclear weapons, tactical nuclear weapons in their territories.

That said, they've also reached out to the non-aligned countries, You have Mexico, you have Chile, later Philippines and Nigeria joined.

Jeffrey 12:37

Yeah, those are the ones I call the soft nammies.

Gaukhar 12:40

Yeah, the moderates. I like that. That said, because we have so many U.S. allies in that group, they've struggled a little bit to establish their credentials on disarmament as far as, for example, the non-aligned movement is concerned.

Jeffrey 12:57

One of the things Bill said to me, and he said I could say this so I'm not speaking out of school, but my understanding is that within the non-aligned movement that's go around, the Iranians were actually quite constructive, which was kind of, I don't know if it's a surprise because there's a nuclear deal on the table and we have a government that's generally been more constructive in Iran.

But was that your sense too, that they played a relatively constructive role in the process?

Gaukhar 13:26

Yeah. Iranians are always interesting. They were interesting in 2010 as well because there's sort of two layers of their representation at the RevCon. There's one where they are touting the hard ideological line and they're very active in all the committees and subsidiary bodies. But then behind the scenes, from what I hear, they usually become very constructive once they get involved in negotiations and really hardcore negotiations, then they are Constructive and engaged, and this time because also there is a deal on the table, I think for all the official NAM line that they, they had to take on on disarmament. In the end, they were happy enough to promote the adoption of the final document, even if it, if it was very weak on disarmament from the point of view of majority of NAM countries.

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Jeffrey 17:38

So let me ask about the substance. You mentioned that the final wording... That was tabled was not negotiated wording, but rather it was a president's statement probably written by the Swiss ambassador who was the, I guess, chairman. Did he split the baby, as it were, or do you think it leaned to one side or the other? What did you think about the final substance of the language on disarmament?

Gaukhar 18:10

I think it, for the most part, split the baby, but... I think it was very mild on the nuclear weapon states taken altogether. You had the recognition of the humanitarian initiative and the word humanitarian is mentioned Unimaginable number of times, I don't know, five or six. But in all of these cases, it wasn't the resounding endorsement that they were looking for.

And it wasn't like welcoming the initiative or welcoming the statement on behalf of 159 states. It was always the language of noting, noting that the states have gathered and discussed things and noting that those states are concerned about the humanitarian impact. One strong thing it did is to reiterate the grave concern about the humanitarian consequences that was in the 2010 final document.

And then it included fairly strong language on transparency in terms of the reporting categories, which would surprise you, right, considering that China and Russia were involved. But then that all gets all conditioned sort of on the national security issues. And so when the draft document came out, a lot of non-nuclear weapon states felt that it was rather weak.

Aaron 19:29

Can you just go into a little bit more detail about the discrepancies? I know that they were stark between the New Agenda Coalition, sort of the humanitarian dialogue about what they wanted in the final document, versus some of the things that the nuclear weapon states were pushing for that they absolutely did not want in the final document.

And maybe a little more detail on how it skewed towards the nuclear weapon states. I mean, you already mentioned that there's something binding in there. It notes that certain issues were discussed. But what did it really come down to? What were the brass tacks in terms of the divergences between the two blocs?

Gaukhar 20:01

When the president was giving intermediate sort of updates from that small negotiating group, she highlighted several issues where they couldn't reach any agreement. And those included the humanitarian impact and sort of language on how to go about it and endorsing or recognizing the initiative. Comprehensive test ban treaty, somewhat surprisingly. Transparency and reporting, and you can clearly think about China and somewhat Russia as well behind that, and effective measures.

And effective measures is the new agenda coalition proposal. They had two, I think, working papers on that. And that's where they introduced the idea that you need legally binding instruments for the effective implementation of Article 6. And we need to have a serious discussion about what instruments we would prefer, be it a ban treaty, be it a comprehensive convention.

Or a framework agreement. And this is probably where the biggest fight was. I don't know for sure, but that would be my assessment. There's a paragraph, I think it was at the very end of the disarmament document, that dealt with this idea of elaborating The legally binding measures or discussing effective measures for nuclear disarmament, and what the New Agenda Coalition wanted and a lot of other non-nuclear states were calling for is to to begin the process of actually elaborating a new legally binding instrument to move towards the prohibition of nuclear weapons, and that of course was extremely ambitious and As far as nuclear weapon states were concerned, was completely a non-starter.

So what the documents did in the end is propose the establishment of an open-ended working group by the UN General Assembly to identify and elaborate effective measures For the full implementation of Article 6, which so far sounds so far so good. But then it's not focused on legal measures. It could include legal measures, provisions or other arrangements.

And then it further goes to recommend that this open-ended working group works by consensus. It is not a requirement, but it's still a recommendation. So you could imagine that if states table the resolution at the first committee next fall, Calling for the establishment of an open-ended working group working on the basis of UN General Assembly rules, so no consensus required, there could be a very serious pushback from nuclear weapon states and also from the allied non-nuclear weapon states.

And so that just seemed like it wouldn't be a very effective instrument or mechanism after all. I think this is where the biggest disappointment was.

Jeffrey 22:51

So that's my question, is what comes next for NATO? For the countries pushing for more steps on disarmament. You said that there could be a showdown in the General Assembly over the creation of an open-ended working group, but do you think that there will be a showdown? Is that where this discussion moves next, or do you think that we just wait two years and come back and discuss it in the Preparatory Committee as part of the process of getting ready for 2020?

Gaukhar 23:23

I frankly don't know yet. I think the core of the humanitarian initiative, the countries driving it, All have some sort of reassessment to do because it came very close to the adoption of a document that was not satisfactory to them, but they were still not willing to wreck the conference over it. So now it's really time for them to go home and talk to, I don't know, their capitals to talk to each other and see how far they're willing to take this in the absence of a final document of the RevCon that endorses one thing or another.

So they could come back as early as the first committee in October with new proposals, or they could decide to regroup and wait a little.

Aaron 24:10

Which nuclear weapon states were particularly, let's say, militant in their approach to keeping to a very strict document that sort of thrust aside a new agenda coalition?

Gaukhar 24:22

Well, even before the conference started, you could sort of see it build up over the past couple of years, this insistence on the 2010 action plan being the long-term roadmap and that we should not steer away from it at all. And I think for some of those countries, the ideal outcome, sort of the maximum outcome would have been just the reaffirmation of the 2010 action plan.

And then we just keep going and this is our over-the-horizon roadmap. And France, of course, was very vocal about that. Russia also used the roadmap language. So, yes, France was very unhappy about attempts to endorse or otherwise welcome the humanitarian initiative. There was a main committee meeting when the French ambassador said that They cannot welcome those parallel processes and meetings where France didn't take part, which of course prompted the Iranians to take the floor and say, well, we completely agree with that approach, so let's not welcome the B5 conferences either, or the nuclear security summit, or any other meeting we haven't attended.

I'm just...

Aaron 25:30

Well, I mean, I guess for American listeners, I mean, because I think the bulk of our audience is American, is where do we fit in this? Where do the United States sort of fit in between you? So you had the Russians, maybe, and the French on one side. I would assume that the Brits were on the other side.

Did we fall in the middle?

Gaukhar 25:48

No, actually, I think the US was seen as the most flexible of the nuclear weapon states. The United States did participate in the third humanitarian impact conference and the UK participated, I most believe, only because the US did. And so the US also had the most conciliatory sort of tone about the humanitarian initiative and Underscoring that humanitarian concerns already underpin all the work that the U.S. is doing.

But the United States made it absolutely clear they're not going to accept the calls for near-term negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention. But even in treating the option of a nuclear weapons convention, the U.S. would talk about it as a possible final step in nuclear disarmament. Whereas others wouldn't. I mean, the UK would mention it as something you would need to maintain a world without nuclear weapons rather than achieve it.

And Russia and France weren't entertained by that idea at all. Russia, of course, was pressing the recently favorite line of general and complete disarmament. And that general and complete disarmament is the truly neglected part of the NPT. And that's what we really should talk about. China got the freest pass, I think, in most of these deliberations.

Jeffrey 27:09

Yeah, I thought Aaron was going to ask about the WMD free zone in the Middle East because he is our resident Middle Eastern expert, but I will ask about it.

Aaron 27:16

Yeah, no, go for it. I mean, I was just waiting to hear more about China, but no, jump in, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey 27:20

Oh, you wanted me to say something about China. I find it interesting that the Chinese get a pass on all of this stuff. You know, I just... You know, it's the country I study the closest. And I don't know. You know, I participated in a working group in which we tried to get language. You know, it was basically a working group about disarmament.

And we tried to get language that said, you know, the Chinese should stop increasing the number of their nuclear weapons. And, you know, like people were like pointing at the U.S. And it's like, hey, you know. So I just I don't know. I find it interesting that the Chinese get a pass on all this stuff.

Gaukhar 27:57

Well, let me rephrase that. They traditionally get a free pass because. They traditionally have been a bit closer with the non-aligned movement. And they have, as you know, have had for a long time this minimum deterrence or whatever that's called.

Aaron 28:15

Lean and mean.

Gaukhar 28:15

Doctrine and...

Jeffrey 28:17

Lean and effective, Aaron. I like lean and mean. Maybe that'll be my third book.

Gaukhar 28:24

Not to weight loss.

Jeffrey 28:28

Yeah, that's right. Definitely not weight loss.

Gaukhar 28:31

So China has the no first use policy and they basically unconditionally support nuclear weapon free zones. And they always talk that, yes, they are completely for negative security assurances. And yes, sure, we can make that a treaty. And they, in principle, don't mind the nuclear weapons convention. But it's, you know, it all sounds good. But of course, it all comes with caveat.

But by and large, they have had what seemed like a more benign sort of position on nuclear weapons and their importance. And this year, I think they were getting pressured a little bit more than they're used to. I think they might have gotten a bit nervous about it. Because when you talk about the humanitarian impact, people weren't focused so much on doctrines and who has how many weapons, but rather just about the impact of any nuclear weapon going off.

And that already is giving China a little bit less of a pass. And then there was a lot of emphasis this year on transparency. And I guess it didn't help very much that Japan was leading that charge. I think that also irritated China.

Jeffrey 29:37

Well, and they got – I mean we mentioned this in the other podcast, but they got really cranky about the suggestion that world leaders visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Chinese ambassador said something like there was a reason you got bombed.

Aaron 29:51

Yeah, the Chinese sort of stepped on it, didn't they?

Jeffrey 29:53

It's like the worst possible thing you could say.

Gaukhar 29:56

Yeah, that got into the papers actually in Japan and then got into some of the media outlets. Media here. So it wasn't a very nice thing to say, let's put it mildly, especially on the 70th anniversary. So it was widely understood that they were fighting against the inclusion of such an invitation in the final document. So in the end, you have this paragraph about the importance of awareness raising and education, and then They went around mentioning Hiroshima and Nagasaki specifically and just said that it's important maybe that people visit areas affected by nuclear weapons.

Yeah.

Jeffrey 30:35

Not to identify anyone in specific.

Gaukhar 30:38

Yeah, well, but if you want to talk about affected by nuclear weapons, you can also talk about areas affected by nuclear testing.

Jeffrey 30:45

Yeah, that's true. Semipalatinsk is a – you know, I – oh, gosh. Was it – is that in your office? Somewhere in our old offices, we had a book of images that included – Children who had been affected by the testing at Semipalatinsk. And it just made me ill. I couldn't even open the book. You're from Kazakhstan.

So this is near and dear, I suppose, to you. Well, despite the fact that that was all a huge fight, that's not what blew up the conference. Yeah.

Gaukhar 31:22

Yeah. Yeah, in the end, disarmament got upstaged a little bit or a lot on the last day when people were basically preparing to swallow the disappointment of a disarmament document that didn't give them nearly as much as they wanted. And then the United States sort of saved the day, I guess, as some people looked at it.

Jeffrey 31:47

It's a funny joke, but you should tell us about it. Because we did a podcast about this already, and so everybody knows what we think. Everybody knows what Aaron and I think. But we don't know what you think. And you're the one who actually spent nearly four weeks of misery walking around the UN and dealing with this thing.

Gaukhar 32:15

The interesting aspect of the Middle East discussions At the RevCon was that it was basically all happening behind the scenes. Dissolvent, everybody knew what the battles were, what the fault lines were. On the Middle East, you had the strong opening positions. You had the so-called Arab paper, and that got also sort of transformed into the non-aligned paper.

And you had the co-conveners paper, and you had a strong U.S. position. And then from there, it kind of went underground. There were consultations going on, presumably very intensive, but there was very little feedback for the rest of the conference participants. About how things were going. General feeling was that it's not going well, but we were very short on specifics.

So those who are particularly close with the United States, I imagine, had more information. But to give you sort of a general feeling from the conference, Middle East remained a bit of a mystery until the end. I think that's partly why it took people by surprise that the conference sank over the Middle East on the last day.

Aaron 33:24

Is it really... Arab paper that then turned into the non-aligned movement paper, or was it an Egypt-drafted paper that was adopted by the Arabs and then sort of got adopted by the non-aligned movement? Can you talk about the role of Egypt in this?

Gaukhar 33:39

Egypt was the driver, as it has always been, on the zone. So yes, it was a paper adopted by the League of Arab States. But even just listening to the national statements, you could sense that different Arab nations felt a little bit differently about it. I think some of them even talked to Reuters and voiced their reservations about it.

So it was a paper with a lot of demands, some of which were eyebrow-raising, and not only for the Arab states and not only for the United States, but also for a number of other NAM countries. And it was kind of seen as a little too much to ask. But then it's not surprising to come in with a paper that asks for too much at the beginning of the conference, assuming you negotiate on it, you're willing to sort of compromise on something.

Jeffrey 34:32

That's what I wanted to ask about was the eyebrow-raising demands because it's my understanding from the U.S. side that a series of the demands were unpalatable but in principle acceptable. So for example – Taking the responsibility away from the Finnish coordinator and putting it in the hands of the secretary general and sort of by extension making the US and others responsible for its success and maybe even setting an arbitrary date certain by which the conference had to happen.

But my understanding is that Egyptians in the end refused to compromise on On the issue of consensus, both, I guess, about the participants, but also the agenda. So they really, as I understand it, wanted the right to go ahead with the conference sort of over the dead body of the Israelis. Is that an accurate understanding of what happened?

Because that obviously makes the Egyptians look rather bad.

Gaukhar 35:41

Well, the initial paper, the initial Arab paper, I think it was unfair to treat Ambassador Laeva the way it did, just completely cutting him out of the picture without as much as a thanks and just thrusting the responsibility for convening the conference and the preparatory process to the UN Secretary General. I don't know how effective a proposal that would have been.

I don't know if it might have been acceptable to the United States, but it seemed very strange to have the UN Secretary General go around and ensure that Israel attends the conference. And if you look at the initial Arab paper, it doesn't really have that much role for the co-conveners, which is surprising, which was surprising to me.

The part of the paper I found really objectionable is that it set out exactly from the beginning what the outcome of the conference should be. So the conference shall convene and establish two working groups and the two working groups shall work on this and that. Kind of raises the question of why have the conference if you already are committed to establishing two working groups.

Jeffrey 36:54

Well, and it sounded to me like – and I think Aaron may jump in here because we both have this same fundamental question, which is do the Egyptians really want a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East? Or do they really just want a chance to scream bloody murder about the Israelis? Because it – It feels to me like this is as much about the politics as it is about getting any substantive deliverable that would enhance Egyptian security.

Aaron 37:24

This has been their issue for so long. You hinted at it when you talked about it. Some of the Arab states were, let's say, not as enthralled with the Egyptian statement as they wanted to, but nevertheless adopted it just because that's what they do. Do you think that there was flexibility? Let's say the Egyptians walked out tomorrow and that the Arab states themselves negotiated.

There's different flexibility behind this that the Egyptians got out of the way that we could actually make some progress.

Gaukhar 37:51

What would the Arab states negotiate without Egypt?

Aaron 37:53

I'm curious. But that's the whole point, right? What would the Arab states do unless Egypt sort of laid out the statements for them and then everybody just fell in line? Is there more flexibility behind that or is this just Egypt's thing?

Gaukhar 38:08

Different Arab states have slightly different positions, slightly different interests. You know, some of them are completely with Egypt on this. Others might be more concerned about Iran at this particular moment in time. Some have viewed the consultations that Basulaeva was leading as a positive process, a useful process that they were willing to continue. Others weren't necessarily so interested.

You have an Arab state outside of the League of Arab States, right? Syria, who knows what they want, really. So I can't really say whether the Arab states can get together without Egypt. I don't think, I don't see them getting together without Egypt and negotiating something on their own.

Jeffrey 38:50

I wanted to ask about the Russian role because we talked to Andrea a little bit about this, but people are sort of – I'm getting a little bit of heck about this. But I can't get anybody to tell me about the Russian role. I mean my understanding is there are a lot of people who feel like the Russians – Encourage the Egyptians to blow up the RevCon over this issue.

And sure, I have no trouble believing that, but it's a little bit opaque to me as to what the play by the Russians was and why they were doing that.

Gaukhar 39:28

Russia has actually traditionally been pretty constructive on the Middle East. I mean, in 2010, they were very constructive. And before the 2010 RevCon, the Initial discussions about even having the conference were with the Russians. And then throughout the process, they were seen as a pretty constructive party, the one place where they were very honestly engaged. That was the impression I got.

But then at this review conference, it seems that that's the issue to which they decided to devote themselves the most. And they moved closer to the Arab position. And I'm not entirely sure what the play was. They might have decided that the surest way to have an outcome is to make the Egyptians sufficiently happy. And then everyone else will fall in line and will have an outcome, even if the disarmament part is weak and so on.

And then I guess they didn't have very much to lose because if the United States doesn't like the outcome, then the United States would have to take it upon themselves to oppose the final document, which in the end the United States had to do. So the Russians got to look good to the Arab states, and Egyptians specifically thanked them in the final statement.

And they also didn't have to bear the responsibility for wrecking anything directly.

Aaron 40:58

And just a little geopolitics involved here. They're also trying to win more lucrative arms contracts and sort of disentangle Egypt from the United States. Do you think that that had anything to do with it?

Gaukhar 41:10

Hmm. I don't know. I wouldn't go that far. But there was some geopolitics involved, that's for sure.

Jeffrey 41:18

The reason I ask is because something we talked about last week is the U.S.-Egyptian relationship at the moment is complicated.

Aaron 41:31

Well, you know, it's bad in some ways.

Jeffrey 41:36

But then there are still things the United States is clearly doing to support the government, which is a little bit controversial here in the United States. We still haven't called it a coup. And so on the one hand, there is this really complicated relationship. And it seems like the Egyptian foreign ministry was just kind of allowed to go ahead and And, and, and, and do this on their own.

I just, I just find that interesting because you know, it would seem to me that You know, the two parties have these much bigger fish to fry. And so trying to figure out what exactly the role of the Russians and what they were trying to get out of this, you know, whether it was to harm U.S.-Egyptian relations, whether it was to insinuate themselves.

It just seems to be an interesting question given the state of U.S.-Egyptian relations at the moment. But I'm not smart enough to know.

Gaukhar 42:33

I doubt that the Russians were trying to insinuate themselves into the U.S.-Egyptian relation on that big strategic level. Using the conference, the Russians seemed sort of genuinely disappointed that they didn't get an outcome on the Middle East. And in terms of the West-Egyptian relationship, it's not something that the Middle East conference is going to break. The foreign ministry has traditionally had the zone file, and traditionally they did what they believed was right about it.

And I don't think that that's something that's going to, in any significant substantive way, harm U.S.-Egyptian relations.

Aaron 43:16

I mean, just sort of like broadening this out, I guess the question is, why are we having this conference? Why is this the goal? And should we make this sort of the thing that can bring down the entire RevCon? I mean, why is this a good idea? Yeah.

Gaukhar 43:35

We have this thing ongoing because of what happened in 1995, right? We had the NPT up for extension and the nuclear weapon states in particular, a lot of their allies wanted an indefinite extension. Whereas some of the other countries and a lot of the countries in the non-aligned wanted some kind of extension. Time-bound extension. There were different proposals for 25 years, rolling five years, etc.

So there was a general will to extend the treaty, but the question was for how long and under what conditions. So Egypt's condition for support of the indefinite extension was that something will be done about the Middle East and the establishment of a WMD-free zone there. And I guess at that point, that was the price to pay.

And the three NPT depositories signed up for it and adopted a Middle East resolution, co-sponsored Middle East resolution, promising essentially to exert certain efforts towards the creation of the zone. And that's been coming back every five years at every REFCON since. And in 2010, we had a breakthrough. And for the first time, some mechanism put in place to actually move towards the implementation of the resolution.

Have some kind of a process that would hopefully lead to the establishment of the zone. And at that point, Egypt seemed very serious about it and they were constructively engaged and I guess at the time it seemed like a good idea.

Jeffrey 45:06

Okay, last question. What happens going forward? Does this mean the mandate for the Finnish coordinator is gone? Does this mean that there now is no conference? Or does it mean that we have a fight down the road about the conference? What's the status of the conference and where do we go from here?

Gaukhar 45:30

The mandate of the Finnish facilitator is definitely over and was considered over at the REFCON. The Finns, by and large, were not involved directly in the Middle East conversations and negotiations during the review conference. But at the end of the REFCON, what the United States said is that if you still want to implement the 2010 decisions, we're game.

As long as there is room for consultations and consensus on the agenda and on the conference outcome and there are no arbitrary deadlines. So presumably, if at some point between now and either the next review conference or the next preparatory committee meeting, Egypt decides to revisit its position, then I think there is room to work on convening the conference.

But it will be politically, I think, hard for Egypt to just come back from its very hard-line position and engage on the terms that the U.S. insists on.

Jeffrey 46:34

Gauhar, thank you so much for spending like an hour with us. That was great.

Gaukhar 46:41

Thanks. It was fun.

Jeffrey 46:43

And thank you on behalf of Aaron and I, listeners, for listening to the podcast. As always, if you like what you hear, go ahead on iTunes and leave us a review. And, you know, if you hate it, don't bother. Thanks for listening.