UN Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference Concludes Without Agreement
The United Nations nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference concluded last night after four weeks without an agreement, the Associated Press reports, with the United States and Iran on opposite sides throughout. The US called Iran a “prolific violator of the treaty” and said Tehran spent the conference “evading accountability for its grotesque violations”. Iran accused Washington and its allies of an “implacable campaign” to legitimise “illegal attacks” against the country and its nuclear facilities. The conference, which began on 27 April, ran in parallel to the Pakistani-mediated US-Iran direct negotiating track.
Tehran has not granted IAEA inspectors access to the nuclear facilities the US bombed in June 2025. The non-agreement at the NPT review conference is the most significant multilateral failure of the post-war diplomatic period and removes one of the principal frameworks that might have given a US-Iran deal multilateral underpinning. The IAEA estimates Iran had 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to 60% at the start of the June 2025 war — the principal stockpile under negotiation. Iran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons; the US position is that the stockpile must be transferred out of Iran. Khamenei’s Wednesday directive that the stockpile “should not leave the country” remains the principal bilateral obstacle.