USA calls for NPT penalties

[Reuters 8, 9 May]The USA has called for penalties for countries that leave the Nuclearnon-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). US delegation leader Christopher Ford saidwith reference to North Korea: "It's important to make withdrawalunattractive before other violaters are tempted to follow such acourse." When it was discovered that North Korea had broken treatyrules by separating plutonium without notifying the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency, it expelled agency inspectors and withdrew from theNPT before going on to develop and test a nuclear weapon. Ford added:"Treaties such as the NPT could quickly become dangerouslyhollow formalisms." A compromise deal was struck on 8 May betweenWestern powers and Iran over the agenda of the first of three NPTreview meetings leading up to the full review meeting in 2010. Iran hadobjected to certain language, forcing a week-long suspension of thetalks.