Divided nations to meet on ailing atom control pact

By Mark Heinrich

GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 180 nations gather on Monday to seek elusive common ground on how to save the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Disarmament groups cite some positive news -- treaty renegade North Korea's nuclear arms freeze and gestures by nuclear weapons states to draw down arsenals they are accused of clinging to as symbols of strength.

But the picture is scrambled by Iran's secretive expansion of uranium enrichment, a possible route to atomic bombs, in defiance of U.N. sanctions, and by burgeoning demand for sensitive nuclear power in conflict-ridden regions -- especially in the rest of the Middle East and in Asia.

Last week, Washington released intelligence alleging Syria built a nuclear reactor with North Korean help before an Israeli air strike destroyed it last September 6. Syria denied the charges.

"The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear material has brought us to a nuclear tipping point," two U.S. ex-secretaries of state, an ex-defence secretary and a senator said in a commentary earlier this year.

"A new definition of state sovereignty as 'nuclear sovereignty'" imperils peace, German ex-foreign minister Joschka Fischer said. He cited Iran's enrichment drive and a spillover risk of a race for nuclear capability across the Middle East.

Haunted by stalemate at the last NPT Review Conference in 2005, 189 members will hold a Preparatory Committee ("Prepcom") session in Geneva until May 9 to debate priorities before the next full, decision-making review conference in 2010.

It will be the second of three annual Prepcoms. Much of the 2007 session, in Vienna, was stalled by Iranian objections to the agenda spurred by Western attacks on Iran's NPT record.