Editor’s Note: Syed Ali Zia Jaffery is Deputy Director, Center for Security, Strategy and Policy Research (CSSPR), University of Lahore. Christina McAllister is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Partnerships in Proliferation Prevention program at the Stimson Center. Prior to joining Stimson, Christina served as a senior advisor to U.S. Department of Defense offices responsible for non-proliferation and countering weapons of mass destruction (CWMD).

By Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Perspectives Project

States Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) are in the final week of the 11^th Review Conference (RevCon), a month-long assembly aimed at reviewing the implementation of the Treaty’s three pillars: disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

This RevCon has taken place amid the ongoing Iran war, which is largely paused due to a tenuous, shaky ceasefire. Given that the war has witnessed relentless attacks on Iran, an NPT signatory, by both the United States, a recognized Nuclear Weapon State (NWS), and Israel, a non-NPT nuclear weapons possessor, it has cast a dark shadow over the conference. But the US-Israeli strikes on what Iran maintains are peaceful civilian nuclear facilities subject to NPT safeguards agreements, veiled threats of nuclear attack, and insistence on halting Iran’s uranium enrichment are not the only points of contention militating against the adoption of a consensus outcome document at the RevCon – the traditional measure of the meeting’s “success.” Nuclear weapon state backsliding on disarmament commitments and security guarantees; Russia’s war in Ukraine, seizure and occupation of an active nuclear power plant, and threats to use nuclear weapons; and tensions over nuclear weapons testing moratoria are just a few of the other serious issues states parties must find diplomatic bridging mechanisms for in order to articulate a vision for moving forward over the next five years. 

Attacks on Safeguarded Nuclear Facilities

After bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan in June 2025, the U.S. and Israel in February, March, and April 2026 again struck these and other sites, including around the [CM1] Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. These attacks have drawn strong criticism from Iran, whose ambassador at the RevCon in his statement dubbed the targeting of nuclear facilities subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards a violation of the treaty. Iran also submitted a Working Paper recommending not only the unequivocal condemnation of such attacks but also legal accountability of the violators. Inclusion of this language in any outcome document is a tall order, since the United States will vehemently resist its adoption. Moreover, while some States Parties have called such strikes violations of international law, they haven’t made an explicit connection between attacks on Iranian facilities and their status under IAEA safeguards. It is no surprise therefore, that the draft outcome document circulated for comment on May 13 delivers less than a wrist-slap, stressing “its support for a diplomatic solution to resolve concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program and encourages all parties to engage constructively for this purpose.”

Whether Iran will accept this formulation or the lack of explicit references to, and condemnations of, the attacks remains to be seen. Meanwhile, on May 17, a drone struck near the edge of the only nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates. While no one claimed responsibility, suspicion fell on Iran, which has retaliated harshly against the Emirates for its support of the war and growing ties with Israel.

Whither Negative Security Assurances?

A day before Iran and the United States agreed to a ceasefire, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to kill the whole Iranian civilization, a threat that many observers criticized for its seemingly genocidal language as well as implications of a possible nuclear attack. Even though Trump ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran weeks later, such incendiary statements are antithetical to the demands of Non-Nuclear-Weapon States (NNWS) for negative security assurances from NWS.

Iran has consistently espoused unconditional, verifiable, irrevocable, and universal negative security assurances. In a Working Paper submitted to this RevCon, Iran argues that, until the total elimination of nuclear weapons, “it is a legal and moral imperative on the part of the Nuclear-Weapon States to adopt measures assuring the Non-Nuclear-Weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons…” The paper also urges the recognition of such assurances as an effective means of nuclear risk reduction, pending total elimination of nuclear weapons.”

This position aligns with that of the Non-Aligned Movement, the largest coalition of states within the NPT. However, the U.S. approach is different, making the provision of negative security assurances contingent on States Parties fulfilling their nonproliferation commitments. Differences became only more pronounced as Washington’s statement at the RevCon called Tehran out as a flagrant violator of the Treaty’s Article III. Iran has refused access by the IAEA to bombed sites since the 2025 attacks and has long failed to explain the sources of undeclared enriched uranium particles at several locations. Iran is believed to possesses 11 tons of enriched uranium, including more than 440 kilograms enriched to 60%, very close to weapons grade. Under an agreement that the Trump administration quit in its first term, Iran was restricted to 300 kilograms enriched to 3.67%, until 2031.

The Uranium Enrichment Saga

As an NPT State Party, Iran is allowed to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. This allowance, as enshrined in the Treaty’s Article IV, does not preclude uranium enrichment or the reprocessing of plutonium for non-military ends but does not explicitly endorse these activities. Noting all of this, Iran has refused not only to dismantle its nuclear program but also to halt uranium enrichment even though it is not believed to have resumed enrichment since last year’s U.S. and Israeli strikes. While the U.S. has repeatedly said Iran cannot enrich uranium, Iran has retorted by calling enrichment its indisputable, inalienable right. In a Working Paper entitled “The inalienable right to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and realization of Article IV,” Iran calls for refraining from pursuing any action that impedes the development of a full nuclear cycle fuel cycle for peaceful purposes. Although this has been Iran’s stance for a long time, it is likely to become an even bigger sticking point as the United States doubles down on stopping or suspending for many years the country’s uranium enrichment. As a result, a deadlock over uranium enrichment, both inside and outside of the RevCon setting, has vitiated the environment throughout the conclave.

But Wait, There’s More

All of this comes in addition to the already fractious environment leading up to the RevCon, in which states parties staked out widely diverging views on a range of issues critical to the NPT.

Deep divisions over the 2022 full-scale invasion by Russia, an NPT nuclear weapons state, of Ukraine, an NPT non-nuclear weapons state, were already a major factor in the failure of the previous RevCon to agree on a consensus outcome document.

The latest draft of the outcome document for this RevCon seeks common ground around international legal protections for civilian nuclear facilities, expressing “grave concerns over any attack or threat of attack against nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes,” but leaves out the location and perpetrators of any such attacks, even as it references IAEA resolutions and formulations on Ukraine. More specifically, it separately expresses “grave concern about the safety and security of nuclear facilities and materials in Ukraine,” a formulation which, in leaving out any mention of Russia’s threats to those facilities and materials, may not satisfy Ukraine and its allies.

The document also expresses the disappointment of non-nuclear weapons states at the expiry earlier this year of the New START agreement, the last nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia. While the language nods to the U.S. administration’s expressed desire to negotiate a new treaty that would include China, China has consistently rejected the suggestion of “multilateralizing” arms control given the enormous size difference between the U.S. and Russian arsenals and those of China and other states with nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, as China’s stockpile grows at an increasing clip, Russia develops new types of weapons, and the United States forges ahead with a stockpile modernization program, non-nuclear weapons states have grown impatient at the lack of progress and backsliding on NPT disarmament commitments by nuclear weapons states. U.S. accusations that China has conducted a nuclear weapons test in violation of its national moratorium has ratcheted up tensions between states parties over the failure of the United States and other key states to ratify and permit the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Add to these frustrations disagreements about whether the NPT allows nuclear weapons states to station nuclear weapons on the territory of other states even while maintaining command and control (nuclear sharing); discouragement over lack of progress towards establishment of a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone, and more, and it becomes clear how difficult it is to arrive at consensus language in the draft outcome document.

High Stakes

It has become a truism that much is riding on the outcome of this RevCon, and that another “failure” to arrive at consensus will deal a severe blow to the review process and the ultimate credibility of the NPT. The UN managers of the review process have stressed the importance of “flexibility” to the states parties meeting in New York. Recognizing that consensus commitments produced at prior RevCons have not yielded tangible results, some analysts recommend measuring success instead by whether the meeting ultimately produces genuine and achievable commitments to furthering the goals of the NPT even if they are not enshrined in a consensus document. With nuclear tensions on the rise around the globe, the importance of reinforcing the basic pillars of the NPT has never been more critical.