Is new can nonproliferation still a realistic goal for russia hosts a conference on the issue at a time of global unease about atomic ambitions in iran and north korea is there the political will to limit and abolish Nuclear Weapons this is inside story. Hello there and welcome to the program i missed now the country with the Worlds Largest stockpile of Nuclear Weapons is holding a conference on preventing the spread and use delegates from more than 40 countries in russia as concerns grow about the threat of nuclear war talks with north korea to give up atomic weapons in return for sanctions relief have stalled russia and the us have abandoned a treaty on limiting new came missiles and a year off to america pulled out of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal tehran is taking more steps to produce and much geranium which could be used for weapons of began pumping gas into centrifuges on wednesday russias foreign minister opened to the conference in moscow by saying irans latest move does not pose a threat to nonproliferation. Despite the u. S. Actions which are not legal in any way or form the joint comprehensive plan of action all the iranian deal is still significant it has helped eliminating all the issues the i. A. E. A. Had against iran it also laid down a transparent system to monitor Irans Nuclear program to a possible degree emphasizing to her aunts right to Peaceful Nuclear energy im certain that it is in the interest of all to maintain the plant and to provide the atmosphere necessary to implementing its terms fully and completely within the jew time limit and his human conscience requies. Who will begin a conversation shortly but 1st lets take a look at the current state of play there are an estimated 14500 Nuclear Weapons around the wilds in the hands of just 9 countries now 5 of them have signed on to the uns nonproliferation treaty they are the u. S. U. K. France russia and china now the others thats India Pakistan israel korea on to restrict and by the pact which is meant to name it the spread of Nuclear Weapons. Well lets introduce our panel in moscow we have say hell shah heres a specialist on nonproliferation and disarmament in vienna on skype robert kelly whos a distinguished fellow at the Swedish International peace for satch institute robert is also a licensed Nuclear Engineer and a former director at the i. A. E. A. And in london Rebecca Johnson who is director of the Acronym Institute for disarmament diplomacy and the founding president of the International Campaign to abolish Nuclear Weapons which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize welcome to you all right i do want to talk more broadly about to some and but we we want to start today in iran primarily because this conference is taking place within the context of these these rising global tensions now since the u. S. Pulled out of the j. C. Piero way that the nuclear deal back in may 28th in iran has started ratcheting up its program and in just the last week weve also had its ambassador to the u. K. Say that theyre now going to follow with similar steps of ratcheting things up every 2 months rebecca how worried should the well be. I think we should be very worried but i think we have to put it in context the 2015 j. C. The the deal that was struck was not just actually with the u. S. And iran it was with the European Union with russia with china. And the u. S. Under President Trump unilaterally started trashing that treaty. And then pulled out and there needs to be far more done by the European Union countries and by russia and china to really reinforce that and reassure iran and make sure that they are not falling into the trap of themselves. Giving russia you know giving an excuse to iran to be ratcheting this up say we need a dialogue and iran for its its part has really got to recognize this is a unilateral action by the u. S. Yes i know theyve got all their conflicts with the u. S. But this is more important iran does not want to find itself in a position of actually getting Nuclear Weapons this is a very dangerous situation for a run itself as well as for the rest of the world rebecca you mentioned the us them and i want to take a look at the statement that mike compare released just this thursday he said irans expansion of proliferation sensitive activities raises concerns that iran is positioning itself to have the option of a rapid Nuclear Breakout it is now time for all nations to reject this regimes Nuclear Extortion and take serious steps to increase pressure now a rapid Nuclear Breakout hes talking about a bone there right sir for here how real is that threat. Well i think that the steps that have been taken so far to reduce compliance with the g c p o a by iran dont mark a significant change in the dip in the breakout time that was done reached after the strong verification system was put in place by way of j c p o a implementation i think that the u. S. Statements are quite absurd if you look at statements from almost exactly a year ago by pompei of himself he has stuck very much towards this maximum pressure policy as being something that would change irans behavior in the region and also then make them more willing to abide by not just constraints in their behavior in the region but also on their Nuclear Program as well and what weve seen is the exact opposite so i find the statement by the secretary of state to be quite laughable and i think until the u. S. Realizes that they are you know completely working against their own security interests we definitely have a problem because as you said every 60 days there will be additional cuts made by iran to the agreement and if we are banking on having a new u. S. Administration next november that means that there will be 6 more cuts between now and then and there wont be anything left of the eager eamonn probably even after one or 2 more cuts because europe who has been given the prime responsibility of now saving the agreement which is wrong because russia and china have a role to play as well europe is now growing quite frantic and were approaching probably what is closer and closer to europes red lines well and also we dont know if there will be a new Administration Come next year well we have also just in the last day had from the israeli Prime Minister on this issue said i do want to take a listen to what Benjamin Netanyahu had to say. And its been like a whole on the International Community to wake up call all nations to join the u. S. And israel and to further intensify the pressure on iran iran is a danger not only for israel every bit least its a danger for the whole world at least today the International AtomicEnergy Agency understood this very well i clarified again israel will not allow iran to develop Nuclear Weapons under any circumstances now one of the things that netanyahu is talking about was that there was this closed door i. A. E. A. Meeting this last thursday where he said the i. A. E. A. Was confirming that iran had been secretly having this Nuclear Weapons program for the longest time now this was a closed door meeting and the agency hasnt come out to confirm his claims im wrong but when the j. C. P. O. A was signed i remember back then you warned that the i. A. E. A. Could be used to deal rail the deal is this the kind of thing you were talking about. Netanyahu has less credibility than the pump a. O. L. So i dont know why we listen to him hes been screaming environment proviron long time the i. A. E. A. Is not in the position of verifying whether or not iran has a Nuclear Weapons program theyre in the business of verifying the Nuclear Materials in the country and theyre very very shy to go any further than i want to make it clear that i think the j. C. Period is a wonderful agreement its not a treaty by the its an agreement there was a very good thing and trump has shown he is misunderstanding or lack of understanding that are national terrors by getting out of it was a very good thing i would like to see the europeans in some way be able to go around trying and leave him taking out there by himself his main goal right now is to punish the iranian people starve them keep them from selling their oil keep away from medicines and thats not a good thing thats almost as bad as Nuclear Weapons well as we know theres a huge amount of pressure on your at and i say you want to jump in there or that could go right ahead. Yeah because i think that we have to recognize that netanyahu and trump are really 2 of a kind and both countries have Nuclear Weapons they have their Nuclear Weapons and what theyre trying to say is say is we can have our weapons and carry on you know and modernize but weve got to stop others and that is not going to yes that perhaps is what nonproliferation was started to do but this is a different world from you know the 20th century this is in the 21st century weve got to have Nuclear Disarmament across the board with the arms reduction in arms controls applying to all and only in that context can we actually be dealing with the the ambitions or if we want i want to think of them as threats and challenges from other countries such as as iran but also saudi arabia is also in a position of wanting to develop Nuclear Energy technologies that everybody assumes what is actually about also trying to have some kind of a a Nuclear Weapons program because these technologies thats what they do they are inextricably linked and weve got to tackle them in you know in a security based manner that doesnt have its ok for have and stop all the have nots or stop some of the have nots we have really got to work not only illustrate the nonproliferation treaty and then also one of the through the 27 to treaty on the prohibition of Nuclear Weapons i want to bring in robert here because i can see him shaking his head im just saying that technical competence is the thing you joined problems Nuclear Power program a Nuclear Weapons program or yours or if you look at the history of Nuclear Weapons in the world only one country has used the civil Power Program to produce Nuclear Weapons and that was focused on everybody else to. Cleanse their program and thats what i think you can see here really is. This business of iran increasing or richer is being done as a provocation its not leading to a Nuclear Weapons program dont have a Nuclear Weapons program to give up the technology for high explosives and most things if you look for example at their attempts to restart the iraq reactor theyve been very careful not to do anything that would actually be useful theyre working on putting plumbing outside the reactor facility and they are using this to go donald trump this is not for practical purpose were back to find the stone but you are saying that youre saying that the j c pos had an important detail and in some ways it was an example to what could be done so does the potential death of the iranian deal then put a whole load of other disarmament treaty is at risk. Yes no i dont think its connected in that kind of a way i think we have to accept the the j. C. Was. A specific kind of agreement as has said not a treaty it was an agreement that was about kind of constraining and limiting it doesnt solve all the problems but it allowed for a pullback by iran but under kind of verified conditions of its particularly uranium and enrichment. Which you know is necessary to be able to cross the boundary from a Nuclear Energy program to wards Nuclear Weapons through the plutonium or the enrich uranium now thats what that deal did it was not perfect it has to be looked at in the round but i spoke of also the 2017 treaty on the prohibition of Nuclear Weapons this was the treaty that was adopted by 122 countries of the u. N. General assembly in july of 2017 and it is already 2 thirds of the way towards getting the accessions that it needs to enter into full legal force now so far the principle Nuclear States have boycotted or theyve you know dismissed the treaty but its early days and we know with all of these treaties they interconnect so the nonproliferation treaty of the 1960 s. Took quite a long time before it even got france and china on board that was more than 20 years we have got to recognize that weve we need the legal infrastructure of a number of these treaties and agreements such as the chase c. P. O. Way and hopefully and and the i. N. F. Treaty which is the other treaty that has now been trashed through the actions of President Trump and president putin and on that note i was actually interested that this an average of is now. Willing for some kind of a moratorium on the intermediate range Nuclear Forces that the i. N. F. Treaty has constrained since 1987 we have to look at the the institutions the whole regime of nonproliferation and disarmament together we are going to come to some of those other treaties just now but before we move on from the j. C. Appear i do want to throw this question to say here because you work on european policy issues and theres been a of the a huge amount of pressure on the European Countries what are they thinking at this stage is it possible now to say that a superior or or are we done. Well i think the most recent cut some of the reactions were reported on and amplified in a way that made it seem as though europe has reached its breaking point but theres very much broad consensus i was in brussels when the cut was announced with european as well as iranian officials and you know the j c. P. O. Way at least preserving the skeleton of it is still an aim for europeans and were hoping that as we see the iranian economy stabilize a bit by way of not only just domestic policy changes but also hopefully increased investment and trade through mechanisms like instax which europe has finally set up and is about to process you know more substantive transactions and also with the help of russia and china and other traditional trading partners that could be willing to import oil you know with all those things combined i think europe is still hoping that microns 4 point plan to talk about Regional Security issues and other aspects of their of Irans Nuclear program i know you know could have a moment of opportunity to take hold we have you know oftentimes the habit of just holding on to the fear and a lot of this is going to the double standards that my panelists are speaking about but we shouldnt forget that iran is still very much open to diplomacy if they are shown negotiation framework that is credible and hes then taken up in good faith so they have put some proposals on the table in terms of Regional Security they put in you know ratifying the Additional Protocol early they put some proposals on the table and i think that we need to take those seriously before they take them off the table and continue with this incrementally increasing of pressure so here they are talking about the diplomatic efforts that irans been making well one of the other things that irans ambassador to the u. K. Said this week is that some info. Eventually figures in iran and now thinking about also leaving the new guinea nonproliferation treaty and that thats now 69 years old. Is there a concern that this could set an example trigger other states to leave the treaty for instance on it last year for instance Saudi Crown Prince mohammed bin salmond said that if the ron got a nuclear bomb they would develop one too so well but is there a concern that we could see some kind of domino effect here. Definitely you have to worry about the fact that the p. R. Carrier the North Koreans left the n. P. T. Under pressure to get want to say what they were doing yes this could propagate also to iran i i hesitate about that statement because the degree can go back several years and see the threat from time to time and they havent done it i dont think it will but what you are pointing out besides talking about these large u. S. Russian bilateral talks your problem is that people like the p. R. Carry they have Nuclear Weapons and if their own to use them theyre developing more Nuclear Weapons theyve got drunk completely confused in this process and very hard to understand where d. P. R. K. Would trust the truth for one second after the stupid things hes done in the room when we were just so you know when theyre sure to hears me either j. C. Was