South Africa is participating in the 11th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) taking place at the United Nations (UN) in New York, from 27 April to 22 May 2026.

The NPT is key to global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear technology and to further the goal of achieving complete nuclear disarmament.

The South African delegation, which is led by Ambassador Xolisa Mabhongo, Deputy Director-General: Global Governance and Continental Agenda, will be reinforcing and promoting implementation of the three interdependent pillars of the NPT, namely:

(i) Non-Proliferation (Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and related technology).

(ii) Disarmament (Pursuing negotiations in good faith on effective measures to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons).

(iii) Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (Promoting the inalienable right of all States Parties to develop and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, including in medicine, agriculture, energy production, and scientific research, under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards).

South Africa is committed to the establishment and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons. In this context, South Africa continues to view the NPT as the cornerstone of the global nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation regime. South Africa values the NPT, for its contribution to global peace and security, and will not waiver in its moral leadership to advocate for urgent progress on nuclear disarmament. This moral leadership was born out of its voluntary, verifiable and irreversible destruction of its nuclear weapons.

Article VI of the NPT places a clear obligation on nuclear-weapon States—China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States—to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament. In previous Review Conferences, these countries committed to eliminating their nuclear arsenals, thereby freeing the world from nuclear weapons and protecting humanity from the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any nuclear detonation or nuclear war.

Delivering South Africa’s national statement during the general debate of the Review Conference, Ambassador Mabhongo stated that: “The modernisation programmes, security policy postures and increases in the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines of nuclear-weapon States reverses any positive gains in the reduction in the number of nuclear weapons and contradicts the commitment to ‘good faith’ negotiations on nuclear disarmament. These risks creating the conditions for vertical and horizontal proliferation.”

Ambassador Mabhongo serves as the President of the First Review Conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), to be held in New York in November 2026. South Africa is thus using the opportunity of the NPT meeting to engage delegations in preparation for the TPNW Review Conference.

ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND COOPERATION

OR Tambo Building
460 Soutpansberg Road
Rietondale
Pretoria
0084