OneWorld.net (U.S.)

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 31 (OneWorld) - Month-long U.N. talks on halting the spread of nuclear weapons have ended with no agreement on how to update and strengthen the 35-year-old Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Diplomats had warned that the conference, the latest in a series of reviews held every five years since the pact was established in 1970 and drawing delegates from 188 countries, likely would end on May 27 without issuing final recommendations. Treaty countries could not even agree on an agenda for the sessions, which began May 2, until the final week.

Even so, disarmament advocates voiced disappointment and frustration at the outcome. Many had warned that nuclear weapons were spreading and could spin regional conflicts out of control or get into terrorists' hands.

''This meeting needed to strengthen the treaty and send a strong signal on disarmament and on proliferation of nuclear weapons,'' said William Peden, a disarmament specialist at environmental group Greenpeace International. ''It has failed to do that and as a result the world is a far more dangerous place.''

''Governments attending the four week conference have failed to seize the opportunity of reducing the nuclear threat, putting their own nuclear self-interests before the desire for disarmament,'' Peden said.

U.S. delegates, for example, kept up a steady barrage of questions and accusations targeting Iran's presumed nuclear weapons program--Tehran has strongly denied pursuing nuclear arms--and North Korea, which has said it is pursuing a weapons program, even as they balked at discussing Washington's willingness to disarm and to moderate or abandon work to develop a new generation of easier-to-use nuclear weaponry.

Meanwhile, the United States ''is doing its own proliferating by maintaining a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert and researching new, smaller, and more usable nuclear weapons,'' said Alice Slater, director of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment and a coordinator of the Abolition Now campaign, a coalition that claims a membership of some 2,000 groups in 90 countries.

For their part, Iranian delegates blocked criticism of their country's nuclear program from being reflected in statements to be adopted by the conference.

Among other contentious issues, Egypt, a non-nuclear nation, revived calls for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East and urged dismantling of Israel's presumed arsenal.

Israel countered that Iran remained the greatest threat against peace in the region. It said it would work with its Arab neighbors to build a zone free of nuclear weapons only after they sign a comprehensive peace agreement and guarantee not to attack Israel's territory or legitimacy.

Thomas Graham, a former ambassador who headed the U.S. delegation at the 1995 NPT review conference, said this month's talks were the least productive he had seen.

''There have been failures in the past, but this failure appears to be at this stage the most acute failure in the history of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference process,'' said Graham, now with the Washington, D.C.-based Global Security Institute.

Under the non-proliferation treaty, nuclear weapons states promised to disarm and those without nuclear arms were promised peaceful atomic technology. Yet, 35 years later, the world's nuclear powers -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China -- have stockpiled thousands of nuclear weapons and continue to make new ones.

Other countries possessing nuclear weapons but not party to the NPT include Israel, India, and Pakistan. North Korea broke the treaty and has said it now is making nuclear weapons.

Another 30-40 countries have nuclear weapons capabilities that could be converted into actual weapons within months, said Greenpeace's Peden.

At the last NPT review conference in 2000, under pressure from non-nuclear nations, the nuclear powers agreed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), strengthen the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, reduce their nuclear arsenals, and halt production of weapons-grade nuclear materials, said Joseph Gerson, peace and economic security program director at the Quaker group American Friends Service Committee.

Washington has since refused to ratify the CTBT, which bans nuclear weapons tests.

Rather, the United States has maintained its own moratorium on testing nuclear weapons although Washington recently began hinting that it might resume testing.

Russia has ratified the CTBT, as have Britain and France.