After four weeks of negotiations focused on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, United Nations member states failed to reach an agreement. The conference, held in New York, concluded without consensus, according to the presiding diplomat, Do Hung Viet of Vietnam. He told reporters that despite maximum efforts, the conference was not in a position to finalize its core mandate and that he would not present the draft document for approval.

A draft text seen by AFP stated that countries without nuclear weapons should never develop them. Delegates had been reviewing the decades-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), under which 191 nations agreed that only five countries—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—could possess nuclear weapons as of January 1, 1967. Currently, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea also hold nuclear arsenals.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), as of January 2025, about 90 percent of the world’s 12,241 nuclear warheads were held by the United States and Russia.