WASHINGTON — Officials from the United States and 10 other countries will meet in Madrid today to discuss how they can use or change international law to prevent shipments of weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems.
The meeting is the Bush administration's attempt to create a multilateral setting -- outside the United Nations -- to explore ways to stop such countries as Iran and North Korea from importing or exporting nuclear materiel, ballistic missiles or other such weapons technologies.
President Bush has repeatedly asserted the U.S. right to act, with other nations if possible but alone if necessary, to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of "rogue" states and terrorists. But he has had trouble persuading other nations to sign up for enforcement duty.
The Madrid meeting is a first, informal gathering of "a small group of like-minded countries" interested in expanding international efforts to stop the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, as part of the "Proliferation Security Initiative" proposed by Bush in a May 31 speech in Krakow, Poland, a senior State Department official said Wednesday.
Mid-level officials from the U.S., Britain, Italy, Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands and host Spain will attend the seven-hour meeting, according to Ramon Santos, political counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington.
The U.S. hopes that the meeting will improve intelligence-sharing to intercept weapons and nuclear materiel, the State Department official said.
Among the questions to be discussed is whether new international legal authority is required to prevent transfers of weapons that are not banned under international law, diplomats said.
"We're still working on whether there needs to be some change to international law to facilitate these types of interdictions, to stop illicit trade," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian radio Wednesday.
Downer said there was no talk "at this stage of imposing a blockade on North Korea," but Australia, he said, is discussing with the United States and Japan possible changes in international law that would make it easier to stop vessels suspected of carrying illicit goods.
But another source familiar with the Bush administration's thinking on North Korea said, "They are tightening the noose without calling it sanctions."
