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Efforts to achieve agreement among 189 nations on reinforcing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) face collapse because of the fall-out from a new UN sanctions resolution against Iran and an impasse on creating a nuclear weapons-free zone for the Middle East, participants warned.

Egypt, backed by most of its Arab neighbours, is threatening to hold the so-called review conference in New York hostage to its demand that firm steps be taken towards establishing a nuclear-free zone for the Middle East, as promised in a special resolution at the end of the 1995 review. Unless some deal can be reached on moving forward on the plan, there is a "strong likelihood" the whole review conference will unravel, a senior Western diplomat said last night.

The zone, which would seek to outlaw all weapons of mass destruction including chemical and biological arms, has won US support. The stumbling blocks are many and high, however. Israel, which is not a signatory to the NPT and which by most reckonings has between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads, would be expected to participate. So would Iran, which, following the tabling of the new sanctions resolution, is more isolated than ever.

The unveiling of the Iran sanctions resolution "has changed the atmosphere here", noted Anne Penketh, programme director with BASIC, the British American Security Information Council, who is monitoring the view. The conference, she noted, "has been on a knife-edge from the get-go and I ... >>>