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UN-SECURITY COUNCIL

UN-SECURITY COUNCIL ADOPTS MEASURE ON NUCLESR ARMS :

UNITED NATIONS — The Uited Natations security coun, with PRESIDENT OBAMA acting as chairman, unanimously passed a resolution on Thursday morning aimed at increasing deterrents for withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and decreasing the likelihood that a civilian nuclear program can be diverted toward the development of advanced weapons.

The resolution is aimed at ensuring full compliance with international arms agreements from countries like Iran and North Korea, which have either banned inspectors or severely limited their access. Mr. Obama said, though, that the resolution was not about pointing fingers, but about ensuring that international agreements have real-world heft. “International law is not an empty promise, and treaties must be enforced,” Mr. Obama said.

The Obama administration hailed the resolution as a significant step forward. But officials said it would not be binding, and would become so only if the Security Council required countries to take other steps, including making their nuclear exports subject to additional restrictions. Many countries balked at that requirement, an indication of how difficult it may prove to toughen the treaty itself when it is up for review next year. Thursday’s special session was only the fifth time that the Security Council had met at the summit level since the United Nation was founded after the second world war, the White House said, and Mr. Obama was the first American president to preside over such a session.

The meeting, which was broadcast live, took place a day after Mr. Obama told leaders that the United States intended to begin a new era of engagement with the world in a sweeping address to the annual opening session of the General Assembly.

As he opened the Security Council session on Thursday, he spoke of his vision of “a world without Nucler weapons,” a vision which the resolution reflected. The adopted text, Resolution 1887, “revitalized” the Security Council’s commitment to work toward a world without nuclear weapons, “urging” all states to work toward the establishment of effective measures of nuclear arms reductions and disarmament. It also reaffirmed that nuclear proliferation is a threat to international peace and security, the White House said in a fact sheet.

“We harbor no illusions about the difficulty” of achieving such a world, Mr. Obama said, “but there will also be days like today that push us forward — days that tell a different story.”

The resolution, Mr. Obama said, endorses a global effort to help nations lock down all nuclear material in the next four years. It reduces the likelihood that nations will be able to turn a civilian nuclear program into a military one, in part by urging countries to put conditions on nuclear exports that would enable international inspectors to continue monitoring them even in a country that withdrew from the nonproliferation pact. That is a rare occurrence, but North Korea declared it was withdrawing in 2003, and inspectors were ejected.

Each of the members of the Security Council expressed their support for the resolution as a step toward a safer world, and called for concrete steps toward realizing the document’s aspirational goals.