In the final hours before the close of the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, delegations have remained engaged in intensive negotiations as they seek to bridge outstanding differences and achieve a consensus outcome.

“Having consulted further with delegations, I understand that this document will not be able to achieve consensus,” said conference president Do Hung Viet on Friday. “I am therefore suspending this meeting to allow for further consultations.”

A revised draft of the outcome document was circulated by the Secretariat Thursday night.

The conference which began on April 27 will end on Friday (today). The RevCon is taking place at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Following weeks of debate and negotiation, the conference now faces a familiar but consequential question of whether consensus will be achieved in a divided nuclear landscape. There is also concern that the meeting will end without a unified outcome, extending the pattern of deadlock seen at the two previous conferences.

After years marked by stalled arms control, intensifying geopolitical rivalry, and heightened nuclear rhetoric, delegates arrived at the closing session aware that even symbolic unity carries weight. 

Last April, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies recalled “unimaginable suffering and devastation caused by the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki”.

This experience has had a profound impact on the entire international Red Cross movement and has motivated “our consistent call over the 80 years for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”.

However, more than 50 years after the entry into force of the NPT, “the world seems to be walking backward and away from the goal of nuclear disarmament”, the ICRC and IFRC warned.

“The Review Conference must address this grave situation with decisive action”, the ICRC and IFRC stressed, as “the only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons are never used again is to prohibit and eliminate them”.

The ICRC and IFRC called for efforts, including highlighting the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapon use, stigmatising it, ensuring compliance with international humanitarian law, and for these points to be included in the Conference outcome document.