A chance for change?
An exclusive report by JEREMY CORBYN from Vienna, where talks are being held on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's future.
VIENNA is a city that has seen it all. It was the centre of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Habsburg dynasty constructed magnificent palaces, theatres, churches and museums there.
Despite its long, slow decline, the empire remained powerful until WWI. It hosted the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which essentially drew the map of post-Napoleon Europe.
After the collapse of the empire at the end of WWI, Austria eventually succumbed to the nazis through the disastrous 1938 Anchluss pact.
The city retains today a magnificent combination of wonderfully preserved fine buildings and an excellent public transport system. Life in Vienna seems worlds away from the realities of poverty and war that beset much of the planet.
This month, the city is hosting the preparatory committee meeting for the 2010 five-yearly review of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The meeting is an enormous affair, with delegations from all the NPT signatory nations, together with hundreds of non-governmental peace organisations there to watch, listen and lobby.
The conference takes place at the Austria Centre, part of the aptly named Danube City, which is situated on an island in the city's famous Danube river. The "city" is, in fact, an ultramodernistic series of conference centres, hotels and apartments. No daylight permeates the conference hall and there is a slight air of unreality about the whole place.
The conference chairman is from Japan, which is the only country that has suffered a nuclear attack. He presides with great dignity at the centre of this enormous hall.
As the delegates are seated alphabetically, the very earnest and morose-looking US delegation is forced to sit at the back of the hall and would need binoculars to be able to measure the expressions on the inscrutable chairman's face.
The review of the treaty comes at a particularly crucial time.
The British Parliament voted on Trident replacement before Easter, while sanctions are being imposed on Iran for alleged breaches of the treaty's inspection regime. India and Pakistan have both developed nuclear weapons and delivery systems and are now free from sanctions. Israel, which has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world, is not a signatory to the treaty and doesn't bother to attend the event, although virtually every delegate makes reference to the problems in the Middle East in their contributions.
On Sunday night, NGO peace groups met at the modernist Danube church to assess the possibilities of any real progress being made at the conference.
For the first time, the conference opened with a message from United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki Moon, who, aside from the usual pleasantries, highlighted just how dangerous the world now is and how dangerous nuclear proliferation has become.
Hopefully, this conference will be more successful than the stalled review conference held in New York in 2005.
One of the early opening contributions came from Australia, which, despite having staunch US ally John Howard as prime minister, took a surprisingly conciliatory approach on the need for the NPT to be effective.
The Russian delegate made an extremely lengthy intervention. He emphasised that Russia had reduced the number of nuclear warheads in its arsenal since the end of the cold war and said that it supported both Atomic Energy Authority export controls and the development of nuclear-weapons-free zones across the world.
Crucially, he went on to state that the situation around Iran's nuclear programme remains tense, but he added that, while Russia supported UN security council resolution 1747 imposing limited sanctions, it expected Iran's "positive response" to UN appeals to be taken seriously.
A wide array of delegates spoke for the rest of the opening day.
'As delegates are seated alphabetically, the very earnest US delegation is forced to sit at the back.'
The Egyptian delegation made two very powerful points - first, that, for all of the successes of the NPT system, the five declared nuclear weapons states had not fulfilled their obligations under Article 6 of the 1970 treaty requiring them to take steps towards long-term disarmament. This point was emphasised heavily at the 2000 review conference.
The Egyptians also said that, while recognising and supporting the existing nuclear-free zones such as south America and Africa and welcoming a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, the latter would be impossible until Israel joins the NPT system and accepts independent inspection of its nuclear facilities.
The European Union's representations were delivered by the German ambassador Friedrich Groening. Rather bizarrely, he reiterated full EU support to non-proliferation, including the terms of Article 6, apparently unaware of the irony that two of the five declared nuclear weapons states - namely, Britain and France - have plainly failed to implement this section of the treaty.
Groening also expressed concern that the Start Treaty and Moscow Treaty expire in 2009 and 2012 respectively. If they are not renewed, he said, it could lead to an arms race in Europe between NATO and Russia.
Cuba spoke on behalf of the largest group of nations in the world, the Non-Aligned Movement, and strongly supported the principles of the NPT.
It called for the total elimination of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. However, like virtually every other speaker, it emphasised that it was possible to develop weapons-free nuclear industries for electricity generation and went on to call for ratification by all states of the central Asia nuclear-free zone and the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.
Those who have demonstrated opposition to Britain's nuclear weapons programme over the years would have been puzzled by British ambassador John Duncan's contribution to the conference.
He expressed disappointment at the results of the 2005 NPT review and called for a real improvement in the atmosphere among states that had signed the treaty, even going so far as to urge the eventual goal of full implementation of the treaty.
On the thorny question of the British government's policy on Trident replacement, he adopted an interesting line.
He said that Britain had "decided to begin the concept of design work required to make possible a replacement of our current ballistic missile submarine fleet and to maintain the option of using the D5 missile beyond its current life expectancy."
He also said that Britain had not taken an "irreversible decision" and that it was committed to the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. He insisted that it was "not safe" to unilaterally renounce nuclear weapons at this stage. Perversely, he also defended Britain against the suggestion that "it is hypocritical for the UK to maintain its nuclear weapons while calling on others to desist from their development."
Nuclear weapons killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese 60 years ago and many more have been victims of nuclear tests in the Pacific, Australia and the US.
The mammoth scale of resources wasted in order to develop these weapons of mass destruction has damaged employment and technical development in many other spheres.
The NPT was bravely signed at the height of the cold war and, if it is to mean anything, the five states that admit to holding weapons, plus India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, should stop their development, deactivate them and sign up to the NPT.
While Vienna might be a world away from the realities of misery, poverty and destruction created by war, the delegates nevertheless have an opportunity to try to shift the agenda on nuclear proliferation.
Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North. He can be contacted at corbynj@parliament.uk
