40 years on, NPT in urgent need of overhaul: experts

Vienna, Jun 29 (AFP) The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty or NPT, which celebrates its 40th birthday this week,
may have succeeded in keeping the number countries in
possession of nuclear weapons down to a mere handful.
But the treaty, drawn up during the Cold War period,
is now in urgent need of an overhaul if it is to meet
present-day challenges such as the proliferation crises in
North Korea, Iran and most recently Syria, experts said.
Experts believe the United States is undermining the
NPT, not only by repudiating its disarmament commitments, but
by seeking to carve out special exemptions from the rules for
allies such India.
It was therefore up to the United States to take the
lead if the NPT is going to survive, the experts said.
Opened for signature on July 1, 1968 and put into
effect on March 5, 1970, the NPT is the most universal arms
control treaty in force.
Its stated goal is to stop the nuclear arms race and
seek nuclear disarmament.
Five countries that had tested nuclear weapons before
the treaty's completion -- China, France, Russia, Britain and
the United States -- were recognised as nuclear-weapon states
and obligated to pursue "effective measures" toward nuclear
disarmament.
All others were designated non-nuclear-weapon states
and prohibited from acquiring nuclear arms at all.
And with the nuclear states apparently reluctant to
dismantle and destroy their nuclear arsenals, the non-nuclear
weapon states see little incentive to keep their part of the
bargain.