Category: Non-Proliferation
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A Major Step Forward on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament
The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council possess over 98 percent of the more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Today, President Obama led a session of the Council focusing on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. The other heads of state of the member states on the Security Council joined him for that meeting.
The Security Council is the organ of the United Nations with “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security….” The Council has not been pressing for nuclear disarmament because its five permanent members (US, Russia, UK, France and China) are the five principal nuclear weapons states in the world. These five states are required by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue good faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament, but they have been dragging their feet and consequently they’ve placed the NPT in jeopardy. There are four additional nuclear weapons states that are not parties to the NPT (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea). These states must also be brought into any serious effort to prevent nuclear proliferation and achieve nuclear disarmament.
President Obama has called for action to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world, but has indicated that it might not be possible within his lifetime. At this special meeting of the UN Security Council, President Obama had a major platform to lead in his pursuit of that goal. He made clear on this global stage that nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts can no longer be deferred without serious consequences for the human future. He underlined the continuing dangers to present and future generations that demands deliberate and urgent action. Bringing these issues to the UN Security Council opens the door for the Council itself to become far more active in pursuing nonproliferation and disarmament, including taking the following steps.
First, reaffirm the 1996 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”
Second, make commitments by the permanent members of the Council to never use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the NPT, and pledge policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances.
Third, endorse the five-point program proposed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, including engaging in negotiations on nuclear disarmament; strengthening security through the nuclear disarmament process; attaining universal membership in multilateral treaties; acting with transparency; and anticipating dangers from other weapons, including eliminating other weapons of mass destruction and limiting missiles, space weapons and conventional arms.
Fourth, instruct its Military Staff Committee, in accordance with the UN Charter, to work out a plan for the total elimination of nuclear weapons and bring this plan back to the Security Council for implementation and enforcement.
Fifth, exercise control over the process of nuclear disarmament, overseeing the manner in which inspections are carried out to assure that weapons are not retained or reintroduced.
Based on today’s unanimous passing of UNSC Resolution 1887, we can share the hope that progress on nuclear disarmament in the Security Council will continue. A bold start has been made and the members could agree to hold such meetings in the future on a regular basis to assure that the task of eliminating nuclear weapons receives high priority among the major threats to global security.
President Obama should be thanked for his initiative in convening and chairing this meeting of the Security Council. What has been missing up to now has been the leadership and political will to move forward the nuclear disarmament agenda. President Obama has demonstrated this leadership. Now it is time for other governments and for ordinary citizens to demonstrate the necessary political will to support this leadership to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and a Councilor on the World Future Council. -
White House Fact Sheet on UN Security Council Resolution 1887
“We harbor no illusions about the difficulty of bringing about a world without nuclear weapons. We know there are plenty of cynics, and that there will be setbacks to prove their point. But there will also be days like today that push us forward – days that tell a different story. It is the story of a world that understands that no difference or division is worth destroying all that we have built and all that we love. It is a recognition that can bring people of different nationalities and ethnicities and ideologies together. In my own country, it has brought Democrats and Republican leaders together.”
President Barack ObamaIn an historic meeting, the United Nations Security Council today convened at the head of state/government level and unanimously cosponsored and adopted a resolution committing to work toward a world without nuclear weapons and endorsing a broad framework of actions to reduce global nuclear dangers.
The meeting, which was called for and chaired by President Obama during the United States’ Presidency of the Security Council, shows concrete progress and growing international political will behind the nuclear agenda that President Obama announced in his speech in Prague in April 2009.
The session was the fifth Summit-level meeting of the Council in its 63 years of existence and the first time that a Security Council Summit has been chaired by a U.S. President.
The new measure, UNSC Resolution 1887, expresses the Council’s grave concern about the threat of nuclear proliferation and the need for international action to prevent it. It reaffirms that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery are threats to international peace and security and shows agreement on a broad range of actions to address nuclear proliferation and disarmament and the threat of nuclear terrorism. Broadly, the resolution supports:
- A revitalized commitment to work toward a world without nuclear weapons, and calls for further progress on nuclear arms reductions, urging all states to work towards the establishment of effective measures of nuclear arms reduction and disarmament.
- A strengthened Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a Review Conference in 2010 that achieves realistic and achievable goals in all three pillars: nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The resolution supports universality of the NPT, calls on all states to adhere to its terms and makes clear the Council’s intent to immediately address any notice of intent to withdraw from the Treaty. The resolution also notes the ongoing efforts in the NPT review to identify mechanisms for responding collectively to any notification of withdrawal.
- Better security for nuclear weapons materials to prevent terrorists from acquiring materials essential to make a bomb, including through the convening of a Nuclear Security Summit in 2010, locking down vulnerable nuclear weapons materials in four years, a goal originally proposed by President Obama, minimizing the civil use of highly enriched uranium to the extent feasible, and encouraging the sharing of best practices as a practical way to strengthen nuclear security and the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and the G-8 Global Partnership.
- The Security Council’s authority and vital role in addressing the threat to international peace and security posed by the spread of nuclear weapons and underscoring the Council’s intent to take action if nuclear weapons or related material are provided to terrorists.
- Addressing the current major challenges to the nonproliferation regime, demanding full compliance with Security Council resolutions on Iran and North Korea and calling on the parties to find an early negotiated solution.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) essential role in preventing nuclear proliferation and ensuring access to peaceful uses of nuclear energy under effective safeguards. This is particularly important to ensure that the growing interest in nuclear energy does not result in additional countries with nuclear weapons capabilities.
- Encouraging efforts to ensure development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy in a framework that reduces proliferation risk and adheres to the highest standards for safeguards, security and safety and recognizing the inalienable right of parties to the NPT to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
- National efforts to make it more difficult for proliferating states and non-state actors to access the international financial system as well as efforts to strengthen export controls on proliferation-related materials and stronger detection, deterrence and disruption of illicit trafficking in such materials.
- Key nuclear agreements, including START follow-on agreement, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, the Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and its 2005 Amendment.
UNSC Resolution 1887 includes new provisions to deter withdrawal from the NPT and to ensure that nuclear energy is used in a framework that reduces proliferation dangers and adheres to high standards for security. The Council committed to address without delay any state’s notification of withdrawal from the NPT and affirmed that states will be held responsible for any violations of the NPT committed prior to their withdrawal from the Treaty.
The Council also endorsed important norms to reduce the likelihood that a peaceful nuclear program can be diverted to a weapons program, including support for stricter national export controls on sensitive nuclear technologies and having nuclear supplier states consider compliance with safeguards agreements when making decisions about nuclear exports and reserve the right to require that material and equipment provided prior to termination be returned if safeguards agreements are abrogated .
The Council also expressed strong support for ensuring the IAEA has the authority and resources necessary to carry out its mission to verify both the declared use of nuclear materials and facilities and the absence of undeclared activities and affirmed the Council’s resolve to support the IAEA’s efforts to verify whether states are in compliance with their safeguards obligations.
The resolution calls upon states to conclude safeguards agreements and an Additional Protocol with the IAEA, so that the IAEA will be in a position to carry out all of the inspections necessary to ensure that materials and technology from peaceful nuclear uses are not used to support a weapons program. The Council also endorsed IAEA work on multilateral approaches to the fuel cycle, including assurances of fuel supply to make it easier for countries to choose not to develop enrichment and reprocessing capabilities.
These steps are important in helping address situations where a country uses access to the civilian nuclear benefits of the NPT to cloak a nascent nuclear weapons program and then withdraws from the NPT once it has acquired sufficient technical expertise for its weapons program.
The resolution strengthens implementation for resolution 1540 which requires governments to establish domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery. Full implementation of resolution 1540 by all UN member states will require additional financial and political support. The Council reaffirmed the need to give added impetus to the implementation of resolution 1540 by highlighting the options for improving the funding of the 1540 Committee’s activities, including through a voluntary trust fund, and reinforcing the Council’s commitment to ensure effective and sustainable support for the 1540 Committee’s activities.
The Security Council meeting was attended by:
President Barack Obama, United States of America
President Óscar Arias Sánchez, Republic of Costa Rica
President Stjepan Mesic, Republic of Croatia
President Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, Russian Federation
President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, United Mexican States
President Heinz Fischer, Republic of Austria
President Nguyen Minh Triet, Socialist Republic of Viet Nam
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Republic of Uganda
President Hu Jintao, People’s Republic of China
President Nicolas Sarkozy, France
President Blaise Compaoré, Burkina Faso
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Japan
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Republic of Turkey
Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary General
Director General Mohamed Elbaradei, International Atomic Energy Agency Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham, Permanent Representative of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya -
Japan’s Election and Anti-Nuclear Momentum
This article was originally published by Foreign Policy In Focus
Although the smashing victory of the opposition Democratic Party in Japan’s parliamentary elections of August 30 had numerous causes, one of the results will be a strengthening of the campaign for a nuclear weapons-free world.
In the past few years, Japan’s long-ruling conservatives — grouped in the misnamed Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) — had shown increasing signs of dispensing with Japan’s nuclear-free status. Pointing to North Korea’s development of a nuclear capability, party officials had publicly floated the idea of Japan’s acquiring nuclear weapons. More recently, a former government official revealed what many Japanese already suspected: Decades ago, an LDP government had agreed to allow stopovers in Japan by U.S. military aircraft and vessels carrying nuclear weapons. Outside observers even began to voice the idea that Japan’s LDP government, by insisting on U.S. nuclear guarantees, might undermine plans by the Obama administration to reduce the importance of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense policy.
But the stunning victory by Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), with its sharply antinuclear stand, has altered this situation dramatically. Pointing to the nation’s “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” — a 1967 government pledge not to possess, manufacture, or introduce nuclear weapons into Japan — Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama promised to work to codify these principles into law. Nor is the party’s antinuclear vision limited to Japan. The DPJ endorses a regional nuclear-free zone. And as recently as this August, Hatoyama told a public gathering that “realizing a nuclear-free world as called for by U.S. President Barack Obama is exactly the moral mission of our country.”
The DPJ’s victory gives added momentum to a campaign for nuclear abolition that has recently transitioned from an apparently utopian vision to pragmatic politics.
Growing Movement
Long before these new U.S. and Japanese officials turned their attention to abolishing the world’s vast nuclear arsenals, citizens groups had organized vigorous campaigns to do just that. And these nuclear disarmament campaigns played a major role in convincing governments to pull back from the nuclear arms race and accept nuclear cutbacks. As a result, the number of nuclear weapons around the world declined substantially — from some 70,000 at the height of the Cold War to fewer than 24,000 today.
Furthermore, in the last few years the call for nuclear disarmament has turned into a demand for a nuclear-free world. In January 2007 and again in January 2008, a group of former top U.S. national security officials wrote op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal contending that, as the very existence of nuclear weapons raised profound dangers for human survival, the U.S. government should commit itself to the goal of nuclear abolition. During the recent U.S. presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly spoke out for building a nuclear-free world, as he did again this April. On this last occasion, addressing an audience in Prague, he committed the U.S. government to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Subsequently, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon announced his own plan to spur the world forward “on its journey to a world free of nuclear weapons.”
A number of important constituencies also champion this goal. In 2008, the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020. It followed this up in 2009 by unanimously passing a resolution “enthusiastically” welcoming “the new leadership and multilateralism that the United States is demonstrating toward achievement of a nuclear-weapon-free world” and calling upon Obama “to announce at the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference” the beginning of negotiations for “an international agreement to abolish nuclear weapons by the year 2020.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, relatively silent on nuclear disarmament since its dramatic antinuclear pronouncements of 1983, displayed a new interest in the subject in 2009. On April 8, speaking on behalf of the Conference, Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany welcomed the Obama administration’s leadership “toward a nuclear-free world” and declared that the Conference “look[ed] forward to working with the Administration and Congress in supporting legislation” toward that goal. On July 29, in a keynote talk at a “Deterrence Symposium” hosted by the U.S. Strategic Command, Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore — a member of the Conference’s Committee on International Justice and Peace — startled the military-oriented gathering by insisting that “our world and its leaders must stay focused on the destination of a nuclear-weapons-free world.”
Labor and Peace
The labor movement has also started to mobilize against nuclear weapons. On July 10, 2009, the International Trade Union Confederation — representing 170 million workers in 157 countries (including the members of the AFL-CIO) — launched an international campaign for nuclear disarmament. A focal point of the campaign is a petition calling for a nuclear disarmament treaty signed by all U.N. member states. According to the world labor confederation, the campaign was “being run in cooperation with the worldwide ‘Mayors for Peace’ group,” headed by Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, which has called for creating a nuclear-free world by 2020.
Although the U.S. peace movement has been preoccupied with ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as with averting war with Iran, it recently has increased its efforts around the theme of a nuclear-free world, especially in connection with the run-up to the May 2010 NPT review conference at the United Nations. Beginning in the summer of 2009, peace and disarmament organizations began circulating a nuclear abolition petition directed to Obama, calling upon the administration to use the occasion of the conference to announce negotiations for a treaty abolishing nuclear weapons. There are also plans afoot for a large antinuclear demonstration at the United Nations on May 2, 2010, as well as for smaller events designed to rally support for a nuclear-free world.
At the moment, the degree to which the Japanese elections will increase the clout of this burgeoning nuclear abolition campaign remains uncertain. The DPJ faces a number of challenges if it is to implement its nuclear-free promises. Although public sentiment in Japan is strongly antinuclear, there is also a rising fear of North Korea’s nuclear program — a fact that might lead to an erosion of the new administration’s nuclear-free doctrine. Compromise on maintaining a nuclear-free Japan is alluring, as Japan has the scientific and technological capability to produce nuclear weapons easily and quickly. Furthermore, many Japanese (and particularly LDP members), though uneasy about Japan’s development of nuclear weapons, feel comfortable under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Thus, they might resist international efforts to create a nuclear-free world.
Even so, the DPJ’s election sweep should hearten opponents of nuclear weapons, for it provides not only a symbolic victory for antinuclear forces but a potentially significant shift in the nuclear policy of a major nation. Above all, it serves as an indication that, around the world, the antinuclear momentum is growing.
Lawrence Wittner is professor of history at the State University of New York–Albany and a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate . His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).
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A Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone
The Middle East has been and remains one of the most volatile and violent regions of the world. It is a region, however, that could grow exponentially more dangerous with a nuclear arms race. Although Israeli leadership sticks to the ambiguous refrain that it will “not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East,” it is widely understood that Israel has 100 to 200 nuclear weapons.
In1981, an unfinished Iraqi nuclear research reactor, Osirak, was destroyed by Israel, and in 2007, Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor, both on the grounds that these facilities would contribute to nuclear weapons development. Iraq was attacked and its regime toppled by the US in 2003 on the false grounds that it had a nuclear weapons program.
Iran is currently enriching uranium that could be used for a nuclear weapons program. Other countries in the region, including Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, have the potential to become nuclear weapons states.
Neither the initiation of a war nor military attacks against nuclear facilities is a sustainable way of maintaining the nuclear dominance of one state in the Middle East. The current imbalance can only be resolved by nuclear proliferation with the potential for nuclear conflagration or by the achievement of a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.
When President Obama spoke recently in Cairo, he said, “It is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is…about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.”
The good news is that every country in the Middle East, with the sole exception of Israel, is a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the parties to this treaty agreed in 1995 to exert their utmost efforts to establish a “Middle East zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems.” The bad news is that this commitment was made 14 years ago, and to date there has been no progress.
It does not bode well for the region or the world that Israel remains outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel’s status as a non-party to the treaty and its possession of nuclear weapons is provocative to the other countries in the region. It is also clear that the United States is employing double standards in continuing its silence about Israel’s nuclear weapons, while at the same time seeking sanctions against Iran, a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, for its uranium enrichment program.
Applying double standards is a dangerous game that is likely to end in a breakdown of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, regional nuclear proliferation and possible nuclear war. It is a path, as President Obama emphasized, that we do not want to travel. This path will only become more probable and dangerous if action is not taken now to prevent it. There are many more countries in the Middle East that are now seeking to develop nuclear energy programs, which could provide a backdoor entrance to becoming nuclear weapons states.
What is needed is US leadership in support of regional negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East. Such negotiations were the reasonable expectation of the states in the region in 1995 when they voted for the indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones already cover the territory of most of the Southern hemisphere of the globe, including in Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Africa. Recently a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone was established. These Zones have worked well to promote regional security and diminish the dangers of regional nuclear arms races.
A Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone will be advantageous for all countries in the region, including Israel and Iran. No country will have the insecurity of worrying about a possible nuclear war in the region, which would be destructive for all concerned.
American leadership in this effort will be critical. It is an essential step toward achieving President Obama’s stated goal of “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” A possible venue for opening discussions on this important security issue is the Global Summit on Nuclear Security that President Obama pledged to convene within the next year. Progress on achieving a regional ban on nuclear weapons in the Middle East will also help assure success at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2010, and move the world closer to the goal of zero nuclear weapons.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and a councilor on the World Future Council.
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Excerpts from President Obama’s Speech in Cairo
Following is the section of President Obama’s speech in Cairo dealing with nuclear issues. To watch a video of the full speech, click here.
The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.
This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran’s leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question, now, is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.
It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America’s interests. It is about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.
I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation – including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.
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United States Remarks to the 2009 NPT PrepCom
Mr. Chairman, all me to elaborate on the concrete steps toward disarmament and the goals of the NPT’s Article VI outlined by President Obama in Prague. First, the United States and Russia will negotiate a new agreement to replace the strategic arms reduction treaty, which expires in just six month from now. The President said in Prague that: “We will seek a new agreement by the end of the year that is legally binding and sufficiently bold…. This set the stage for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapon states in this endeavor.”
President Obama and Russian President Medvedev have instructed that the new agreement achieve reductions lower than those in existing arms control agreements, and that the new agreement should include effective verification measures drawn from our experience in implementing START. The Presidents have directed that talks begin immediately, and further charged their negotiators to report, by July, on their progress in working out a new agreement.
Mr. Chairman, I head the American negotiating team in my capacity as Assistant Secretary for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation. My Russian counterpart and I held an initial meeting in Rome on April 24th, and we plan to reconvene in Moscow after the PrepCom concludes. I pledge my best efforts and those of other American negotiators to meet the follow-on START goals set by Presidents Obama and Medvedev.
A message from President Barack Obama to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty PrepCom was read by Assistant Secretary of State and Verification, Compliance, and Implementation, Rose Gottemoeller (full quote): One month ago in Prague, I reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As I said then, the United States believes that the NPT’s framework is sound: countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them, and all countries can have access to peaceful use nuclear energy.While we agree on this framework, we must strengthen the NPT deal effectively with the threat of nuclear weapons and terrorism. Action is needed to improve verification and compliance with the NPT and to foster the responsible and widest possible use of nuclear energy by all states.
To seek peace and security of a world free of nuclear weapons, in Prague, I committed the United States to take initial steps in this direction. Through cooperation and shared understanding, I am hopeful that we will strengthen the pillars of the NPT and restore confidence n its credibility and effectiveness.
I recognize that differences are inevitable and the NPT parties will not always view each element of the treaty in the same way. But we must define ourselves not by our differences, but by our readiness to pursue dialogue and hard work to ensure the NPT continues to make an enduring contribution to international peace and security.
Again, please accept my thanks for your work on building a better, more secure future and my best wishes for a successful meeting.
Rose Gottemoeller continues with US Statement (full quote): President Obama confirmed in Prague that the United States will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). We will also launch a diplomatic effort to bring on board the other states whose ratifications are required for the treaty to enter into force.
President Obama also said that the United States will seek a new treaty that verifiably ends production of fissile materials intended for use in nuclear weapons—a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. Such a Treaty would not only help fulfill our NPT Article VI commitments, but also could help avoid destabilizing arms races in South Asia and, by limiting the amount of fissile material worldwide, could facilitate the task of securing such weapons-usable materials against theft or seizure by terrorist groups.
The negotiation of a verifiable FMCT is the top priority at the Conference on Disarmament. The CD has been unable to achieve a consensus on beginning negotiations to end the production of weapons-grade materials dedicated to use in nuclear weapons for far too long, and it is time to move forward. The United States hopes that its renewed flexibility on this issue will enable negotiations to start soon in Geneva. Pending the successful negotiation and entry into force of an FMCT, the United States reaffirms our decades-long unilateral moratorium on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. We call on all governments, especially the other nuclear weapon states, publicly to declare or reaffirm their intention not to produce further fissile material for weapons. Similarly, until CTBT enters into force, the United States will continue our nearly two-decade long moratorium on nuclear explosive testing. We call on all other governments publicly to declare or reaffirm their intention not to test.
Rose Gottemoeller is the Assistant Secretary for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation for the United States and the United States representative to the 2009 NPT PrepCom.