“NPT matters. It is a cornerstone of nonproliferation and a foundation of nuclear disarmament. But it is only a means, not a goal,” said Ambassador Susan Burk, Special Representative of President Obama for Nuclear Non-Proliferation. “The Nuclear Security Summit has a narrow focus: on the vulnerability of nuclear materials,” said Michael Gordon Political Advisor at the US Mission to the United Nations. With polite firmness, Ambassador Burk seemed as keen on load shedding expectations from the 2010 NPT Review as Mr. Gordon in ruling out the inclusion of NPT related issues on the agenda of the Washington Summit on Nuclear Security on 12 April. They were speaking at the Harvard Club in New York on 29 March at a conference organized by the Century Foundation and Fredrich Ebert Stiftung for diplomats from 30 countries, representatives of the UN Secretariat and the European Union, strategic analysts, and disarmament activists.

Taking a position that a review does not resolve, Ambassador Burk predicated the outcome of the 2010 NPT Review on recognizing “what it can and cannot do.” She made it clear that the US commitment to the new START for four years is independent of the outcome of the 2010 Review. Mr. Gordon deftly sidestepped any suggestions for a carryon outcome of the Nuclear Security Summit for the NPT Review. Neither Ambassador Burk nor Michael Gordon offered details of any sequential steps in pursuing a three-pronged strategy for President Obama’s vision of nuclear security: downsizing of US-Russian nuclear arsenals as a step towards zero-nukes; safeguarding the nuclear materials from proliferation or diversion both by states and entities other than states; and strengthening
the non-proliferation regime in awareness of the NPT’s fraying edges on universality,compliance and verification. In the ensuing debate, policy analysts saw the timing of the Nuclear Security Summit as a political signal by President Obama to relate nuclear non proliferation to real time security concerns of both the signatories and non-signatories of NPT. Skeptics looked at the US invitation to only 46 of the 193 UN member-states for the Nuclear
Security Summit as a calculated move to offer an alternative to a post NPT Review global convention on elimination of nuclear weapons as supported by Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and 127 UN member states.