By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 9 -- The closing session of the Preparatory Commission for the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference was mostly a session of self-affirmation: nothing was agreed to, but just talking was a success.
This was the position taken by the chair Enrique Roman-Morey. The UN described him as “Permanent Representative of Peru to the United Nations,” but at the press conference afterward he said he represents Peru in Portugal; in the wrap up session he said he was heading to lovely Lisbon.
Inner City Press asked Roman-Morey about the closing statement of Mexico, which cited double standards. Roman-Morey jumped in to say that he has short circuited the critique because the final document, not by consensus, was his and his alone. Inner City Press jokes about the water glass in front of him being more than half full -- whereupon he took a long drink for it.
Of the signing ceremony for a protocol for a nuclear weapons free zone in Central Asia that Inner City Presscovered mid-week, Roman-Morey said he was involved in that from the first meeting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Inner City Press asked if reservations such as that expressed by the UK are positive or the norm. Roman-Morey said in the Latin America and Caribbean treaty there are comments from the 1960s, for example from a Central American country saying it might use “peaceful” nuclear weapons to build a canal like the Panama canal.
Roman-Morey has a wealth of experience; he answered a rising Egyptian TV journalist in Arabic. But what was accomplished in New York these past two weeks. The US has publicly said some upbeat things, mostly about the Central Asian signing which even Roman-Morey admitted was really a side event with little relation to the NPT PrepCom. Hope springs eternal. Watch this site.
Footnote: Even though the first question was, correctly, not automatically handed to the UN Correspondents Assocation, the day's UNCA representative insisted on it. Becauseexecutive committee members of UNCA not only tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN for its coverage of Sri Lanka, UN official Herve Ladsous and French Ambassador Gerard Araud, but have since engaged inoutright censorship with Google (here) and UNTV (here), Inner City Press on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access counter-thanked Roman-Morey.
These events shouldn't be branded, particularly by censors; there should be no automatically given first questions, particularly to censors. Watch this site.