LONDON: Gordon Brown may lead efforts to revive the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a way of tackling Iran’s atomic ambitions, his most pressing foreign policy challenge once he becomes British prime minister.

After ten years as finance minister, Brown is widely expected to succeed Tony Blair in June or July. Government and diplomatic sources say he may have less than a year to influence policy on Iran as Washington’s patience with Tehran wears thin.

Western relations with Iran are fraught because of concern it may be trying to build nuclear bombs under cover of an atomic energy programme, and threats of UN sanctions appear so far to have done nothing to dissuade it from pressing on.

“There are things Brown can do and things he can’t do. Iran is the thing he can’t not do,” said one government source.

Experts believe Iran is close to enriching industrial quantities of uranium, which can be used to generate electricity or, if highly enriched, to make nuclear bombs.

Sources close to Brown say his aides are discussing ways of reinforcing the NPT, a pact which has neither prevented several states acquiring nuclear arms nor persuaded others to disarm.

“We need to think about whether we want to take a more internationalist approach to the counter-proliferation agenda and look at steps that could be taken by nuclear-possessing countries to get the process going again,” said one source.

The treaty dates back to 1968 but four states known, or believed, to have nuclear weapons — India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — stand outside of it.

“You cannot have a world of nuclear haves and have-nots and there is a huge audience for this message right now,” said Dan Plesch, author and commentator on nuclear proliferation.

A call this year by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for Washington to lead a consensus to reverse global reliance on nuclear weapons caused a stir.—Reuters