Nuclear nations to meet in Chch

Christchurch will bask in the glow of the international nuclear spotlight next week.

World officials are meeting in the city over five days to help improve nuclear safeguards and stop nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands.

The closed meeting of the 46 member countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) will take place against the backdrop of China's controversial plan to export nuclear reactors to non-member state Pakistan, and widespread concerns about nuclear developments in Iran and North Korea, neither of them NSG members.

At the Thursday session, nuclear-free New Zealand is expected to assume the chairmanship of the high-level group of nuclear suppliers for at least the next six months.

Prime Minister John Key offered to host the annual talks in New Zealand for the first time in a letter to US President Barack Obama last year.

A spokesman for Disarmament Minister Georgina te Heuheu confirmed the meeting would take place and said she would attend at least part of the gathering along with up to 200 overseas officials.

Few other Government details were available yesterday, but the venue is understood to be the Christchurch Convention Centre.

The NSG was formed in 1974 after India, then a non-nuclear-weapon state, exploded a nuclear device and showed nuclear technology meant for peaceful purposes could be misused. The group aims to reduce nuclear proliferation by export controls on materials, equipment, software and technology that could be used in nuclear weapons development or in acts of nuclear terrorism, and by improving safeguards on existing materials.

Disarmament groups say this year's meeting comes at a crucial time for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and nuclear energy, especially relating to India and Pakistan, Iran and Israel, and North Korea.

Disarmament and Security Centre spokesman Robert Green said it would be "an extraordinary event".

"It's strange that here you have a nuclear-free country hosting a meeting for all the countries that supply the nuclear industry around the world."

China's intention to export nuclear reactors to non-member Pakistan was a consequence of the pressure the United States applied to other members of the group to allow it to sell nuclear technology to non-member India in 2008, he said.

"China will be here and they have been playing a straight bat on these rules until now, but they are claiming if the US can drive a coach and horses through the rules then so can they. It's open season. It means the current non-nuclear proliferation treaty is unravelling."

Washington DC-based Arms Control Association director Daryl Kimball said next week's event was expected to start with a two-day meeting of the NSG's consultative group.

The event's plenary was due to take place on Thursday with Friday to confirm agreements on actions.

There would also be expert meetings for information exchange and licensing and enforcement, Kimball said.

- © Fairfax NZ News