Delegates hail success of nuclear meeting

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Delegates hailed the success of a two-week meeting to prepare for a major conference next year to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even though it ended Friday without specific recommendations on disarmament, nonproliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Zimbabwe's UN Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku, who chaired the preparatory meeting, said the session achieved what it set out to do: Delegates agreed on an agenda, a chairman and procedures for the review conference. By contrast, the last review conference in 2005 was unable to agree on an agenda until nearly three weeks after it started - a major factor in the failure of the meeting. Chidyausiku said delegates had a foundation for discussions. "We're almost there, but we didn't want to spoil the atmosphere by going into acrimonious little differences between state parties," he said.