After a month of bickering, the 188 signatories to the global pact against atomic weapons ended their conference late last night with no agreement on new steps to combat the danger of a nuclear holocaust and many blamed the US and Iran.
The review of the nuclear 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty was characterized by divisive debates over North Korea, Iran's nuclear enrichment ambitions, Israel's presumed atomic arsenal and US plans for new and improved atomic weapons.
When the conference began on May 2nd, countries had hoped to agree on a plan to plug loopholes in the treaty that enable countries to acquire sensitive atomic technology and to hear from Washington and the four other NPT members with nuclear weapons that they remained committed to disarming.
But it quickly descended into procedural bickering, led by the US, Iran and Egypt, and ended after approving only a document that listed the agenda and participants.
In a clear swipe at Washington, which angered developing countries by refusing to reaffirm previous pledges to scrap its own nuclear arsenal, Canada's chief delegate blasted countries that tossed aside earlier commitments.
"If governments simply ignore or discard commitments whenever they prove inconvenient, we will never be able to build an edifice of international cooperation and confidence in the security realm," Ambassador Paul Meyer, the head of Canada's delegation, said in a speech to the conference.
The US has denied undermining the conference. Privately, US officials blamed Iran and Egypt, who they said hijacked the block of non-aligned nations in an attempt to focus criticism on the United States and Israel.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan regretted that nations missed a "vital opportunity to strengthen our collective security against the many nuclear threats to which all states and all peoples are vulnerable."
He warned that the inability to take action was "bound to weaken the treaty and the broader-based regime over time," UN spokesman Stephan Dujarric said.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, said he was not surprised there were no breakthroughs as the world is too divided on how to address the nuclear threat.
"The treaty is still there. It will continue to work, but it will continue to work with the same shortcomings," he told Reuters from Vienna. "I think the best thing is to move forward and not to engage in recriminations over who is to blame."