Judging from public statements from Moscow, the Russian government’s principal disappointment following the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations in New York (April 27-May 22) was its failure to produce a statement calling for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. But is Russia truly pursuing this goal? Its policies suggest otherwise.
During the closing session of the conference, the head of Russia’s delegation, Mikhail Ulyanov, complained that “the adoption of a final document including a section on the Middle East turned out to be impossible because of the objections of three states.” To avoid any uncertainty regarding their identity or Moscow’s goals, Russia’s Foreign Ministry followed up with a statement expressing regret that “the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada” blocked language on “the implementation of the 1995 resolution on the creation of a zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction, as well as related delivery vehicles in the Middle East.”
Moscow’s public position on a nuclear-free Middle East is hardly new — today’s Russia is more or less following a Soviet policy first outlined in 1958, nearly six decades ago. Needless to say, the Middle East has changed somewhat since that time, as have the global distribution of nuclear weapons, the structure of the international system and Moscow’s place in it.
One of the most significant changes in the Middle East is Israel’s presumptive nuclear arsenal — something that puts a nuclear-free zone out of reach for the foreseeable future. After all, it is often much easier to persuade governments to give up what they don’t have than what they do. Thus, as difficult as it has been to approach a nuclear agreement with Iran, which does not yet have a nuclear weapon, few have similar aspirations for North Korea, which appears to have several. Taking into account that Russian arms control and nonproliferation experts are among the best in the world, and that Russian Foreign Ministry diplomats have decades of experience working on these issues, they should be well aware of this practical reality. As a result, they should also be well aware that persuading Israel to give away something it doesn’t admit to having and therefore can’t even discuss is very unlikely. So is convincing the United States and others to join an effort to compel Israel.
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