The P5 have proclaimed their continued commitment to this goal, declaring at the First Committee that they “support the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons with undiminished security for all. One of those aspects, of course, is the pursuit of good-faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament, and here the actions and example of the P5 - the world’s first nuclear weapons possessor states - loom particularly large.

And indeed the P5 states have made very clear - most recently in a joint statement issued at the United Nations First Committee in October - their continuing commitment to the NPT in all its aspects. These principles at the core of the NPT are what produce the critical security benefits that the Treaty provides to all States Party, and they provide the foundation of nonproliferation assurances upon which depend both the worldwide system for sharing the benefits of nuclear technology and mankind’s hope for eventual nuclear disarmament.īecause of this, and as a result of the intrinsic geopolitical and economic weight of the P5 states, it matters a great deal what these countries do in the NPT process. The P5 have played a key role in every aspect of the NPT, sitting as they do at the center of the critical nonproliferation agreement that has lain at the core of the nuclear nonproliferation project since the so-called “Irish Resolution” of 1961 first articulated the principles that became the NPT’s Articles I and II - namely, that nuclear weapons possessors should not disseminate such weapons and non-possessors should not seek to acquire them. It is a great pleasure to be back at Wilton Park, and all the more so be able to join counterparts from Russia and China in speaking to you about the “P5” states and their role in global nonproliferation and disarmament diplomacy in the lead-up to the 2020 NPT Review Conference (RevCon).

P5 countries