Since its foundation, the P5 Process has been facing challenges along the way. The geopolitical context is one of the key sources of those challenges because relations among the five nuclear-weapon states (P5) – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States – do not take place in a vacuum. Clearly, the current foreign and security policy context creates unprecedented obstacles for the format.

On January 3 this year, the nuclear-weapon states issued “The Joint P5 Statement on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races”. For the first time, the leaders of the “P5” jointly affirmed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. This statement was scheduled to be presented in the margins of the NPT Review Conference, which was to be held in January of this year. Notwithstanding that the NPT RevCon was postponed, this statement saw the light.

The second session of the Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction was supposed to be held on November 16–22, 2020. However, due to restrictions of COVID-19, it was postponed to November 29 –December 6, 2021. Much has changed since the first session of the Conference held in 2019. The balance of power in the Middle East region has changed, and administrations in Israel and Iran have changed. One thing has not changed: the Middle East has never had a WMD-free zone.