Seeking strengthening of the global non-proliferation regime, President Barack Obama on Saturday said the greatest threat to NPT in the Middle East is Iran’s failure to live up to its international obligations over its controversial nuclear programme.

“The NPT must be at the centre of our global efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world, while pursuing the ultimate goal of a world without them.

This agreement includes balanced and practical steps that will advance non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, which are critical pillars of the global non-proliferation regime,” Obama said in a statement.

“It reaffirms many aspects of the agenda that I laid out in Prague, and which we have pursued together with other nations over the last year, and underscores that those nations that refuse to abide by their international obligations must be held accountable,” he said.

Noting that the document includes an agreement to hold a regional conference in 2012 to discuss issues relevant to a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems, Obama said the US has long supported such a zone, although its view is that a comprehensive and durable peace in the region and full compliance by all regional states with their arms control and nonproliferation obligations are essential precursors for its establishment.

“We strongly oppose efforts to single out Israel, and will oppose actions that jeopardise Israel’s national security,” the President said.

“The greatest threat to proliferation in the Middle East, and to the NPT, is Iran’s failure to live up to its NPT obligations,” he added.

“Today’s efforts will only strengthen the NPT as a critical part of our efforts to ensure that all nations meet their NPT and non-proliferation obligations, or face consequences.

Together, we must work for a world where nation’s benefit from the peaceful power of nuclear energy, while also being secure from the threat posed by nuclear proliferation,” Obama said.

Meanwhile, welcoming the NPT review consensus, the Arms Control Association (ACA) said in the coming months and years, key states will have to deliver on their promises to strengthen IAEA safeguards, guard against treaty withdrawal, bring Iran and North Korea into compliance with their NPT and safeguards obligations.

Besides, bring India and Pakistan into the nuclear weapons risk reduction and elimination process, accelerate international cooperation on securing nuclear weapons usable material; and advance the verifiable nuclear arms reduction process, bringing the CTBT into force, negotiate a fissile material production cut off, further reduce the roles and missions of nuclear weapons, and create a framework for the verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons, the ACA said.

The ACA is a US-based private, non-profit membership organisation dedicated to public education and support of effective arms control measures pertaining to nuclear, chemical, biological and conventional weapons.

“The 2010 NPT Review Conference Final Statement encourages all states that have not done so to conclude and to bring into force additional protocols.

The Conference also called for ratification of the CTBT with all expediency. It affirmed that all States need to make special efforts to establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons,” Daryl Kimball of Arms Control Association said in a statement.

“The successes achieved at the conference were made possible by the leadership exhibited by the US team and by the shift in US nuclear weapons policy direction under President Obama over the past 15 months,” he said.

“The Conference also agreed to a practical and prudent approach to discuss the issues and conditions necessary to achieve a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.

The NPT Review Conference agreed to hold a meeting among states in the region by 2012 and to name a facilitator for the meeting,” Kimball said.

“Israel was engaged in arms control discussions with other states in the region in the 1990s.

If Israel joins in the process again, the difference would be that Iran would also be in those discussions, and concerns about Iran’s intentions would also be under the spotlight,” he said.

“While Iran was not specifically called out in the conference document, Iran’s safeguards violations are well known and were indirectly criticised in the Final Statement.

And of course, Iran remains on the hook for its safeguards violations and continued production of enriched uranium in violation of UNSC resolutions that call for it to suspend its uranium enrichment,” Kimball said.