April 16th, Conference at The Scottish Parliament 

Over 100 people attended this conference .
“Civil Society and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”
A One Day International Conference to prime the 2010 NPT Review Conference 
of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Lord Hannay Chairman UNA UK,  Dr Gari Donn Covenor UNA Edinburgh, and             Bruce Crawford MSP opening the conference.

 Photos of the conference    more photos added 6th May

Full report of conference appears above under Nuclear Non- Proliferation  tab

UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION
(Edinburgh Branch)

A world without nuclear weapons

I append a letter the Branch has received - by way of Mark Lazarowicz MP -from
Bill Rammell MP; Ministry of Defence

spelling out Britain’s position in response to the Resolution adopted by all 49 UNAs represented at the WFUNA Assembly in Seoul last August. Do check out – if you haven’t already done so – the document Bill Rammell recommends on the FCO website
The Road to 2010
This is 50 pages of essential reading.

“The Road to 2010” provides the Government’s policy and programme leading up to both the Environmental Meeting in Copenhagen in December (the Government wishes to use the opportunity to ‘sell’ nuclear energy – which maybe is why Scotland is not being invited to take part) and the Review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in New York in May.

In many ways the Government’s position is not only reassuring but encouraging:
- we have continuously and significantly reduced our numbers of Trident nuclear
weapons
- we have postponed designing an updated Trident system
- we are more than willing to participate in multilateral disarmament
- we press for the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (it still
needs the signatures of China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea,
Pakistan and the US) and of a Treaty to Terminate the Production of Fissile
Material.

But our Government – and the Conservative opposition – have yet to understand that to “work for a safer world in which no country feels the need for nuclear weapons ” implies recognition that we must work together for our common collective security (and nowhere is this more important than in the Middle East). In emphasising transparency and nuclear security ‘The Road to 2010’ emphasises that the IAEA cites 250 cases of nuclear material going astray but I have yet to find any independent audit of the nuclear weapons held by the nuclear powers. More than half of the Earth’s surface is comprised of nuclear-weapons-free-zones and the countries there show more trust and more sense of realism than the nuclear powers.

Bill Rammell should be deeply ashamed that our Government is not prepared to declare that it will never even threaten to nuke nuclear-weapons-free zones and that we are not prepared to forgo the first use of nuclear weapons. What is the point of stating that our Trident weapons are maintained unaimed and unready for firing when we reserve the ‘right’ to mount a pre-emptive nuclear strike? Gordon Brown should also be deeply ashamed; he it is who gives the commands to initiate firing. We should be pressing NATO to change its strategic philosophy.


(a.f.gaines@strath.ac.uk Edinburgh UNA, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Working Group)

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

8 October 2009
Dear Mark,
Thank you for your letter of 16th September enclosing one from Edinburgh UNA.

The UK has been at the forefront of moves to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Your constituents may find it useful to read “Lifting the nuclear shadow” (available at http:// www. fco. gov.uk/en/fco-in-action/counter-terrorism/weapons/nuclear-weapons//) and “The Road to 2010” (available at http://www. cabinetoffice.gov.uk/reports/roadto2010.aspx) which set out the Government’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons and our plans to make further progress towards that goal.

We have already taken a large number of unilateral steps to ensure we retain only the absolute minimum capability required to provide effective deterrence. The UK is widely recognised as the most forward leaning Nuclear Weapon State on the disarmament agenda. For instance, we have cut the explosive power of our nuclear weapons by 75% since the end of the Cold War and we now have fewer than 160 operationally available nuclear warheads. As and when discussions between the US and Russia have progressed to the level at which our involvement would prove useful, we stand willing to include our system in broader multilateral arms reduction negotiations. In addition, as the Prime Minister recently told the United nations Security Council, he has asked our national security committee to report on the technical possibility of a future reduction of our nuclear weapon submarines from four to three.

However, this does not mean that the time is right for the UK to unilaterally disarm. Prior to the Parliamentary vote in March 2007 which approved the development od a replacement for trident, the Ministry of defence carefully analysed the current and likely international security environment. This work was published in a White Paper”The Future of the UK’s Nuclear Deterrent” (http:// www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm69/6994/6994.asp) in December 2006. We concluded that there
Were still risks to UK security from emerging nuclear weapons states and through state sponsored terrorism and that the UK’s security was best guaranteed through the continued operation of a nuclear deterrent. We therefore remain committed to having one nuclear armed submarine on patrol at all times, which is called Continuous At Sea Deterrence. However, this is a policy we keep under constant review.

It is worth highlighting that the UK was among the first to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. We have called regularly on all states that have not yet done so to do the same (Particularly those whose ratification is required before the Treaty can enter into force). The UK has also been at the forefront of efforts for over a decade in getting the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to start negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. We have also recently hosted a conference of the recognised nuclear weapon states to discuss confidence building measures towards nuclear disarmament.

The UK continues to strongly support both the UBSC Resolution 1540 – establishing for the first time binding obligations on all UN member states under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to take and enforce effective measures against the proliferation of WMD, their means of delivery and related materials . The UK also supports the call for a creation of an international nuclear fuel bank – meaning countries can develop nuclear energy technologies without the need to develop nuclear fuel processing laboratories.

We welcome the ongoing discussions between the US and Russia on a follow0on treaty to replace the Strategic Arms reduction Treaty which expires in December. This shows that the reductions in nuclear weapons immediately following the end of the Cold War were not a temporary trend, but a continuing effort with the aim of total elimination.

Edinburgh UNA calls on the Government to adopt a ‘no first use’ policy. This was considered and has been rejected on the basis that it would be incompatible with our and NATO’s doctrine of deterrence and that it would not further nuclear disarmament objectives. The 2006 White Paper makes it clear that we would only ever contemplate the use of our nuclear deterrent in extreme circumstances of self defence but both the UK and NATO do not determine in advance how to react to aggression. This would be decided in the context of all circumstances prevailing at the time. In so doing, we seek to create uncertainty in the mind of any aggressor about the nature of the response to aggression against the UK or our Allies and ensure, as far as possible, that we would never have to use our nuclear weapons at all.

Please pass on my thanks to your constituents for their interest.
Yours sincerely,
BILL RAMMELL MP

CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION
TREATY
A ONE DAY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE TO PRIME
THE 2010 REVIEW OF THE NON-PROLIFERATION
TREATY
Organised by the Edinburgh Branch of UNA-UK
Held at the Scottish Parliament

 
CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY
A One Day International Conference to Prime the 2010 Review of the NPT
Organised by the Edinburgh Branch of UNA-UK
Held at the Scottish Parliament
April 16 2009

 
Table of Contents
1. Message from Hans Blix
2. Message from the Conference
3. Conference Programme
4. Key Note Lectures
Session I
Mr Bruce Crawford MSP: Opening Address
Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku: The Issues to Address for the Review
Mr Sergio Duarte: UN and Disarmament
Lord David Hannay: What is needed to make 2010
Review of the NPT a Success?
General Sir Hugh Beach: Verification
General V.R. Raghavan: India’s view of the future of the NPT
Session II
First Secretary Sergey Andriashin: Approaches of the Russian Federation
to Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Counsellor Mr Yi Zheng: China and Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Consul-General Kenichi Suganuma: From Hiroshima towards the Total
Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
5. Topics considered at the Round Table Discussions
6. Registered Participants
7. President Barak Obama’s Prague Speech
ANNEX: Submission to the conference from Mahmood Tavana, President of UNA Iran

 
1. MESSAGE FROM DR HANS BLIX, PRESIDENT OF WFUNA
GETTING RID OF THE WORLD’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS
I would like to express my appreciation for the timely initiative of the Edinburgh Branch of
UNA/UK in hosting the conference in the Scottish Parliament on the role of Civil Society and
the NPT in moving us forward into a world without nuclear weapons.
Your timing could not be better.
The magnificent speech given by the American President, Mr Obama, in Prague on 5th
April, announcing his intention to work for a nuclear-weapons free world, set out a sensible
and compelling agenda for change. He has knitted together the twin concepts of leadership
and responsibility, and in so doing revitalized our hopes that the grand bargain arrived at in
the formulation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will be realized, now and forever.
To focus on the now, I encourage you to think together about the kind of international
cooperation needed to ensure that the NPT Review Conference in 2010 will do what is
needed to bring the States Parties and those governments that either stepped down or
stood aside from this instrument, to become actively engaged in the bold purpose of
achieving the purpose of this most important Treaty, particularly Article VI on disarmament.
And for your focus on the forever, I encourage you to draw on the strengths of the World
Federation of United Nations Associations as a peoples’ movement for the UN. What is
needed is a global educational effort, to encourage people from all walks of life to become
global citizens and in so doing accept that it is both their right and responsibility to hold
governments accountable, through the United Nations, for securing and maintaining a world
free of nuclear weapons.
I look forward greatly to receiving the report of your deliberations and in the meantime, wish
you a very positive and productive meeting.
WFUNA New York office: One UN Plaza, DC1 – 1177 Website www.wfuna.org
WFUNA Geneva Office: E4 – 2A; Palais des Nations Email wfuna@unog.ch
Phone 212 963 5610; Fax 212 963 5610 Phone 41 22 917 3239; Fax 917 0185
WORLD FEDERATION OF UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATIONS
FEDERATION MONDIALE DES ASSOCIATIONS POUR LES NATIONS UNIES
A peoples’ movement for the United Nations

 

2. MESSAGE FROM THE CONFERENCE
All participants at the Edinburgh International Conference of 16th of April 2009 were
concerned to prime the success of the 2010 Review of the NPT.
All participants expressed serious concern at the failure of the 2005 Review, and felt, in light
of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion, that it was difficult to imagine a
situation in which the use of nuclear weapons would be legal.
All participants considered deeply the Key Note Lectures as well as the messages from
Ambassador Chidyausiku and Sergio Duarte, reflecting a wide range of national views.
Not only have the last three months provided dramatic international changes, the Key Note
Lectures give hope that the 2010 Review of the NPT provides a unique opportunity to
generate agreement on the following practical steps:
- Universal signing and ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
- Agreement of a Treaty to Terminate the Production of Fissile Material
- Commitment by all nuclear-weapon states to a ‘no-first-use’ policy
- Absolute respect for nuclear-weapons-free-zones and the extension of such zones to
areas not yet covered.
Above all, participants recognised the importance of Article VI of the NPT, in which the UN
offers to provide a secure world, free of nuclear weapons moving towards internationally
verified general disarmament. It is essential that the US and the Russian Federation
continue bilateral agreements to reduce their extraordinary levels of nuclear weapons.
To provide hope and preserve the reality of the NPT, a truly multilateral approach to free the
world of nuclear weapons is needed. Such an approach should be built on mutual trust and
confidence, a strengthened negotiation process, and on maintaining technically proficient
verification procedures. It is essential that the 2010 Review Conference makes major
progress in this direction.
The Conference produced many practical suggestions to increase the security of the world,
notably the exemplary abandonment of nuclear weapons by Scotland.
These recommendations will be relayed to the United Nations and to global civil society
through WFUNA; and to parliamentarians through the Parliamentarians for Non-proliferation
and Nuclear Disarmament (PNND).
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS AT THE CONFERENCE BY
Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku, Chair of the May Session of the UN Commission
preparing the 2010 NPT Review
Sergio Duarte, UN High Representative for Disarmament
Available on www.youtube.com/user/Disarmamenthub

 
CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY
A One Day International Conference to Prime the 2010 Review of the NPT
The Scottish Parliament : 16th April, 2009
PROGRAMME
8:45-9:15am: Registration at the Scottish Parliament
Conference Chair: Dr Gari Donn, Convenor UNA Edinburgh, Member (for Scotland) Board of UNA-UK
9:30-10am: Welcome: Bruce Crawford MSP, Minister. Chair of the ‘Scotland without Nuclear Weapons’
Working Group
10:00am-12:25pm: Towards Global Nuclear Disarmament Session I
Introduction: Exclusive interviews: Ambassador Boniface Gowa Chidyausiku, Chair, May (2009)
Session of UN Commission preparing the 2010 NPT Review Conference,
Sergio Duarte, UN Secretary-General’s High Representative for Disarmament,
Lord David Hannay CMG. CH., former UK Ambassador to the UN.
“What is needed to make the 2010 Review of the NPT a Success?”
10 minutes for Questions and Answers
General Sir Hugh Beach MC. Former Director, Council for Arms Control; Co-Chair, Board of Directors,
VERTIC (NGO part-funded by the British and Norwegian Governments, pre-eminent for research into
verification of nuclear disarmament.
“Verification”
General V.R. Raghavan, Advisor to International Commission for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and
Disarmament, former military advisor to Indian Government.
“India’s view of the future of the NPT”
10 minutes for Questions and Answers
12:25-1pm: Buffet Lunch
1-2:30pm: Towards Global Nuclear Disarmament Session II
Sergey Andriashin, First Secretary, UK Embassy of the Russian Federation.
“Approaches of the Russian Federation to Nuclear Non-Proliferation”
Counsellor Mr Yi Zhing, The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China.
“China and Nuclear Non-Proliferation”
Consul-General Kenichi Suganuma, Consulate of Japan (Edinburgh)
“From Hiroshima towards the total elimination of Nuclear Weapons”
15 minutes for Questions and Answers
2:30-4:30pm: 4 Parallel Round Table Discussions
Facilitators: Lord David Hannay; Malcolm Chisholm MSP; Robin Harper MSP;
Jo Swinson MP.
4:30-4:45pm: Tea Break
4:45pm-5:45pm: Summing up - Conference Chair
6:00-7:00pm: Reception in the Garden Room
KEY MESSAGES FOR THE NPT CONFERENCE

 
MINISTER BRUCE CRAWFORD MSP
I am delighted to be here to open this important Conference and to welcome such eminent
speakers. Particular thanks go to UNA Edinburgh for the vision and organisation of this
event.
What is my interest? As Minister for Parliamentary Business within the Scottish Government
I am also responsible for the Scottish Government’s policy towards the presence of nuclear
weapons in Scotland.
The SNP and I have long-standing opposition to use, possession and threat of use of
nuclear weapons and commitment to non-proliferation it was one of the main driving forces
behind my joining the Party.
I believe that now is absolutely the time and place to be having this event to discuss how
these shared objections can be driven forward at the 2010 Review Conference.
Scotland - The Place
- Scotland is uniquely placed as an unwilling home to nuclear weapons within a Nuclear
Weapons State - we understand the experience of having nuclear weapons and what this
can mean for communities.
- As Judge Christopher Weeramantry of the ICJ (International Court of Justice) commented
when he spoke at the recent international conference held here at the Parliament, the
presence of nuclear weapons is a concern for Scotland: “the health of the Scottish
population is the concern of Scotland. The welfare of future generations of its population is
the concern of Scotland. The protection of the environment is the concern of Scotland. The
purity of the seas and the ocean life around Scotland are the concerns of Scotland”.
- All of the issues so eloquently identified by the Judge are indeed matters devolved to
Scotland, directly affected by the presence of nuclear weapons.
- Our experience and understanding of these issues led the representatives of the people of
Scotland to vote against the renewal of Trident in the Scottish Parliament in June 2007.
- This was a decision informed by decades of experience and campaigning on this issue in
Scotland.
- Its continuing significance is reinforced nearly 2 years later by the current global economic
crisis which highlights the need to ensure that resources are deployed to best effect and not
wasted.
- It is estimated that renewal of Trident alone will cost £25 billion and that over a lifetime the
total cost may rise to £75 billion. In this time of economic insecurity can it really be argued
that this is an economic priority?
- People in Scotland are ready to engage in disarmament and to learn from others across
the world how this might be achieved, and to consider how this might support international
work on non-proliferation.
Now is The Time for discussion
There are three particular reasons why I believe that now is the time for discussion:
- Appropriate in Scotland where, for the first time, the elected Government has publicly set
out its opposition to nuclear weapons and to the renewal of Trident;
- in October 2007 we held a very successful Summit on Trident which I know some of you
here today attended;
- in April 2008, I launched the Working Group on Scotland Without Nuclear Weapons.
- It has gathered, under my chairmanship, to consider a wide-ranging remit exploring the
impact of the presence of nuclear weapons on a devolved Scotland.
- These are not just symbolic commitments; the Summit and the Working Group have
examined issues of tangible importance to the people of devolved Scotland.
- Including the likely economic impact of removal of nuclear weapons from Scotland and the
adequacy of the existing licensing and regulatory framework
- The Group has also considered opportunities for Scotland to play its part in international
work to promote peace and reconciliation.
- The Group will report to Ministers before the summer on its remit - and I am delighted that
some of the members are able to be here today to hear and participate in these discussions.
- Appropriate in NPT terms: we are now a year from the next Review Conference and it is
vital that relevant discussions take place now in order to feed into the mechanisms for this
important quinquennial opportunity.
- Appropriate in global terms. New risks of proliferation have emerged, some very recently.
But, at last, it seems that the world is ready to have the difficult discussions that successful
multilateral disarmament would require.
- The inauguration of Barack Obama and his firm steer that the new US Government takes
seriously its obligations to promote elimination of nuclear weapons, and his desire for early
progress, has, it seems to me, reflected world opinion and turned the tide of the diplomatic
possibilities.
- Mr Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons, as outlined in his recent speech in
Strasbourg, is a vision we can all share and believe in.
 
- More importantly, it is a vision that has been communicated clearly as a serious and
desirable future reality not just to existing signatories of the NPT but to the wider world.
- And Mr Obama’s steer is already creating ripples of movement including close to home.
- Most unusually as those of you familiar with British domestic politics will appreciate, I found
myself - as a nationalist Minister nodding in agreement to a speech given by the UK Prime
Minister.
- And yet there was much with which to agree (on the subject of nuclear weapons at least!)
in the speech that the Prime Minister delivered at the end of last month.
- I agreed, for example, with his assessment that a new “progressive spirit of multilateralism”
had begun.
- I agreed, very clearly, that it is vital that terrorists should be prevented from getting their
hands on nuclear materials.
- And I agreed with, and welcomed his acknowledgment that, “there are tough
responsibilities to be discharged”
- And that “now is the time for serious commitment” both to prevent proliferation from nonnuclear
weapons states and for nuclear weapons states to take active steps towards
disarmament.
- This is all very different rhetoric from that which led up to the last Review Conference, or
indeed even from that of this time last year.
- It is rhetoric that gives me hope that this Review Conference may make the necessary
breakthrough to tackle the new risks of proliferation and to take advantage of the new
progressive spirit of multilateralism.
- However, it will not do so unless we take the essential next critical steps to move from
intention to action;
- To move from dream to reality and see this formalised and initiated by the time of the next
Review Conference.
- This means that all of the State Parties must engage with the process whole-heartedly and
arrive ready to explain what they are ready to do to fulfil their part of the pledge.
- For the moment the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, representing the UK Government has
pledged to reduce the UK nuclear arsenal.
- But in doing so he has unfortunately committed himself to a new generation of weapons of
mass destruction to be based on the Clyde.  
- This is not only a huge disappointment it is a huge mistake.
- I agree with Field Marshall Lord Bramall the former head of the armed forces who queried
recently how the United Kingdom could exert any credible leadership and influence on this
issue.
Particularly when the UK Government is planning on a costly successor to Trident which
would continue the UK’s “nuclear-power status” well into the second half of the 21st century.
- And as he put it, “might also actively encourage others to believe that nuclear weapons
were still, somehow, vital to the secure defence of self-respecting nations.”
- He also said “Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a
deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently, or are likely to, face —
particularly international terrorism; and the more you analyse them the more unusable they
appear.” Again I agree with him
- The UK’s nuclear arsenal is of most immediate concern to us in Scotland and we believe
that there now exists a unique opportunity for the UK Government to show world leadership
and turn warm words about disarmament into deeds.
- But we are also clear that effective international action is required to address nuclear
proliferation and disarmament.
- We therefore hope that other Nuclear Weapon States will make clear commitments to
disarmament. We also look for clear commitments of support for non-proliferation from non-
Nuclear Weapons States.
- The Scottish Government is keen to support the UK Government and the international
community in their steps towards a world in which none of us will possess, nor be affected –
as Scotland is - by the presence or use of, nuclear weapons.
- We will therefore be exploring ways in which the Scottish Government can play our full part
in helping to achieve this objective.
- Conferences like today represent valuable opportunities for experts such as those here on
the podium to explain the reality of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
- And to share views and expertise on how progress can be made and what we can all do to
support such progress.
- Additionally, they provide the opportunity to promulgate good practice and inspire us to
take out to civic society the necessary and attainable aspirations enshrined in the NPT.
- I encourage you all to engage and participate today – I look forward to hearing and
exploring your view.

WHAT IS NEEDED TO MAKE THE 2010 NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY REVIEW
CONFERENCE A SUCCESS?
LORD HANNAY OF CHISWICK, CHAIR UNA-UK
Forty years ago most of the foreign policy pundits were confidently predicting that, long
before now, the world would have between twenty and thirty nuclear weapons states; and
that, in consequence, it would be a much more dangerous and insecure place. They were
correct in their second proposition, but wildly wrong in the first. There are currently only
eight, perhaps nine if one counts North Korea, nuclear weapon states, five of whom already
possessed nuclear weapons when the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was
negotiated and who were recognised in the treaty as such, together with India, Pakistan and
Israel none of whom ever signed the treaty. Nor was the discrepancy between prediction
and outcome merely due to the technical challenges of acquiring a nuclear weapons
capability and the means of their delivery. There are plenty of countries out there who, if
they had chosen to ignore their international obligations, could have successfully gone down
that road. So the NPT, for all its imperfections, has been an astonishing success story for
international diplomacy, a triumph for a rules-based system designed to protect us all from
nuclear anarchy.
Following the end of the Cold War much was done to strengthen the NPT regime. A
number of important countries which had not hitherto done so signed on to the NPT – China
and France most prominently; a number which had been clandestinely developing, or flirting
with the idea of developing, a weapons capability were either dissuaded from doing so – as
were the cases of Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, South Africa and Libya –
or were coerced into abandoning their efforts – the case of Iraq. The 1995 NPT review
conference decided to prolong the treaty sine die, so that instead of needing to be renewed
every five years it became open-ended in its duration. At the same time the five recognised
nuclear weapons states promoted a Security Council Resolution which endorsed what are
called negative security assurances to the non-nuclear weapons states. And, at both the
1995 and the 2000 NPT review conferences, the nuclear weapons states committed
themselves to taking a number of steps towards nuclear disarmament, thus recognising the
implicit bargain contained in the original treaty between these who forswore nuclear
weapons and those who already had them. That, alas, is where the good news ends.
From the year 2000 onwards, until a few weeks ago, the George W Bush administration
applied itself quite deliberately to the de-construction of rules-based systems in the fields of
arms control and disarmament. None of the steps towards nuclear disarmament to which
the nuclear weapons states had committed themselves in 1995 and 2000 were
implemented. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) was junked. The Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty remained unratified. At the same time the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, obtained incontrovertible evidence that two of the
signatories to the NPT, North Korea and Iran, had been clandestinely developing
programmes with a nuclear weapons potential, which in neither case has it so far proved
possible definitively to halt or to reverse. At the 2005 NPT review conference and in the runup
to the 2005 UN Reform Summit plenty of proposals were on the table for strengthening
the non-proliferation regime but not one of them was adopted. An unholy alliance between
the US, unenthusiastic about any new binding international disciplines, and a group of 

countries who wanted to keep their hands free in the future, ensured that the 2005 review
conference was a complete fiasco, incapable even of adopting its own agenda. And, since
then, the two countries with by far the biggest nuclear arsenals, the US and Russia – who
have 95% of existing warheads – have got at cross purposes over the installation of an antiballistic
missile system in Eastern Europe just when they need to be renewing and
strengthening a number of the bilateral arms control and disarmament agreements between
them. That long litany of bad news explains why the international community now stands on
the threshold of another critical period for non-proliferation, every bit as fraught with risk as
the one it successfully confronted in the 1960’s. And that explains why so much will be at
stake at the 2010 review conference. So, what needs to be done?
Let us start with the two special cases of North Korea and Iran. In both cases a diplomatic
dialogue has been engaged between the key players – in the case of North Korea this
involves the six-nation group of China, Russia, the US, South Korea, Japan and North
Korea, in the case of Iran it involves what is known as the 3+3 group, the first three being
the EU states; France, Germany and the UK, the second three being the US, Russia and
China; in neither case is that dialogue currently making any progress; and in both cases
some economic sanctions, which show no signs of bringing about a solution on their own,
have been imposed by the Security Council.
Clearly if progress is to be made a new impetus will be required and new elements,
probably a mixture of the positive and the negative, will need to be introduced. The United
States is already talking directly to North Korea, but it is not yet doing so to Iran. It needs to
do that now; and the willingness expressed by the Obama administration to do just that is
very welcome, as was the change in tone employed by President Obama in his New Year
message to the Iranian rulers and people. The negotiations must reach well beyond the
nuclear issues at stake and must cover the security concerns which have led these two
countries to embark on the paths they have chosen in the first place. Both countries need to
be inserted in a regional framework which provides for noninterference confidence-building
measures and economic cooperation. Will all this suffice to bring about solutions? It will only
be possible to answer that question when those renewed efforts have been tried. But I
would warn against any illusion that there could be a soft landing if either of these two
countries were to acquire or retain a nuclear weapons capability. Both are situated in
regions of considerable tension and fragility. Far more likely than a soft landing would be a
wider regional break-out from non-proliferation disciplines and the risk of a slide towards
hostilities of one sort or another.
But finding solutions to the two cases of North Korea and Iran is very far from being all that
needs to be done. Every bit as important will be steps to strengthen the international
disciplines which underpin the NPT. Efforts to bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
into force need to be renewed.
Negotiations need to be begun on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. The proliferation risks
from the expansion of civil nuclear energy generation which is likely to ensue world-wide as
part of the response to long term higher energy prices and to the need to limit carbon
emissions, must be avoided. To do that we surely need to avoid the widespread
construction of new uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing facilities – the high
road to a potential weapons capability – and to reach early agreement at the IAEA on an 

internationally guaranteed system of providing nuclear fuel services to bona fide civil
nuclear users. Currently there are half a dozen or more such schemes on the table in
Vienna. They need to be reduced to one which can gain global support. The recent
conference in London on 17 March organised by our own government, illustrated the scope
and urgency but also the difficulty of achieving that. And a way must be found of achieving
universal application of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol which permits its inspectors much
more intrusive access to nuclear facilities than the earlier systems of inspection which have
been found to be so fallible. Acceptance of the Additional Protocol may indeed need to
become a condition of supply of civil nuclear material.
Critical to making progress on this wide and complex agenda will be the willingness of the
recognised nuclear weapons states to move ahead down the road to nuclear disarmament.
One can argue endlessly about the degree of legal commitment contained in the NPT and in
the undertakings given at the review conferences in 1995 and 2000. But the politics of the
situation are very clear. The NPT established unequal sets of obligations on two different
groups of countries, the nuclear weapons states and the non-nuclear weapons states;
unless that inequality can be reduced and the eventual target of eliminating it can be
retained and made more credible, the whole system risks falling into disrepute and
dilapidation. Clearly efforts by the nuclear weapons states have to start with the US and
Russia, which have by far the biggest arsenals. There would seem to be ample scope for
reducing these arsenals either unilaterally or by mutual agreement. There should also be
scope for prolonging and strengthening their agreements on strategic missiles and perhaps
for eliminating whole categories of weapons as was done at the end of the 1980’s for
intermediate range missiles. It should also be possible to achieve much more ambitious
forms of de-alerting which would ensure that nuclear weapons genuinely become solely a
matter of last resort and are not built into normal strategies of military response. And a way
will need to be found of ensuring that anti-missile defences are not seen as a threat by one
against the other, either by delaying deployment or by enhanced capacity for international
inspection.
But the steps to move towards nuclear disarmament cannot be confined just to the US and
Russia; they must extend too to the other three states, China, France and the UK. If the
process of multilateral nuclear disarmament is to restart in earnest – and I have tried to
show how important that is if the 2010 NPT Review is to make real progress – then the
three recognised nuclear weapons states with smaller arsenals cannot simply take a pass
on it. Recent signs, in particular the letter which President Sarkozy sent to the UN
Secretary-General in December on behalf of the whole EU, but most relevantly on behalf of
its two nuclear weapons states, France and the UK, and Gordon Brown’s speech to the
International Fuel Cycle Conference in London on 17 March would seem to indicate that this
point is well taken by two of the three at least. But it will be necessary to move on from
words to deeds. In that context the initiative being taken by our own government to get the
five recognised nuclear states to undertake an indepth study of the sort of verification
measures that would need to be in place if they were to move towards nuclear disarmament
and an eventual zero could be of real value.
In addition it is perhaps time to look again at the question of No First Use Commitment by
the recognised nuclear weapons states. Throughout the Cold War the West declined flatly
to contemplate NFU assurances on the grounds that the Warsaw Pact’s massive superiority

in conventional weapons, in particular in Central and Eastern Europe, put that out of the
question. Now the Warsaw Pact no longer exists and nor does that superiority in
conventional weapons. So NFU assurances could be less unthinkable; and they would be
valuable. So too could be some strengthening of the Negative Security Assurances
endorsed in the Security Council Resolution adopted at the time of the 1995 NPT Review
conference. Kofi Annan’s High Level Panel on which I had the honour to serve suggested in
2004 that the Security Council should explicitly pledge to take collective action in response
to any nuclear attack or the threat of such an attack on a non-nuclear weapon state. Now
could be a good moment to look again at that proposal too.
So far I have said nothing about the three countries which are known to possess nuclear
weapons and which have never signed the NPT, India, Pakistan and Israel. All three
represent seriously difficult problems, not least the fact that it is hard to see much progress
being made until solutions are found, on the one hand to the dispute over Kashmir and on
the other to that over Palestine. That is yet another reason to re-double efforts to resolve
those two problems. In the case of the Middle East it will be important to maintain the
objective of a nuclear weapons free zone throughout the region as an integral part of any
comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli dispute. And at least some of the steps I have
discussed earlier, for example the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, should be capable of being
accepted by the other non-NPT nuclear weapons states; and they should be pressed hard
to do so.
Which brings me back to the original question of what is needed to make the 2010 Review
Conference a success and what the prospects are for achieving what is needed? To
address the second question first, the prospects for a renaissance in multilateral nuclear
disarmament after a decade of stagnation and regress are quite encouraging. Already two
years ago a bi-partisan group of US elder statesmen – George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Bill
Perry and Sam Nunn – set out the case for such a policy shift in compelling terms. The case
was broadly accepted by both candidates in the US presidential election. And the new
administration of President Obama has said that it intends to work for ratification by the US
of the CTBT, for the opening of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and for
bilateral talks on a range of arms control and disarmament issues with Russia. And a few
days ago, the President himself in a speech in Prague nailed his colours to the eventual
achievement of Global Zero. There seems also to be a widely accepted understanding that
the international community cannot afford to have in 2010 another fiasco like the Review
Conference in 2005.
It is important too to remember that by no means all the nuclear non-proliferation issues I
have tried to review will come for decision to the Review Conference itself. Many of them,
like the negotiations over the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programmes or the bilateral
negotiations between the United States and Russia, will not be on the table there. But
progress in them, or the lack of it, will certainly condition the diplomatic climate in which the
Review Conference takes place and will influence the attitudes, for better or for worse, of
the much larger number of governments who will be participating in that conference. The
converse also is true. A 2010 review conference which sets an entirely new direction of
travel from the one we have been following in recent years will certainly strengthen the hand
of those who are pressing for progress in the more restricted negotiating forums, while a
setback at the review conference will have the opposite effect.
It is important therefore to look on the 2010 review conference as one step in a journey
which needs to last a lot longer than the next fifteen months and which is not in itself a
destination. That is the logic of the timetable which has been adopted by the International
Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament set up by the Australian and
Japanese governments and on which Shirley Williams is serving. The Commission intends
to produce two reports, the first designed to influence preparations for and the outcome of
the 2010 Review Conference and the second to be drawn up after the conclusion of that
conference to map out the way ahead thereafter. That is surely the wisest way to proceed.
I hope that what I have said has helped to throw some light on a necessarily complex and
technical subject. It is all too easy to throw up one’s hands in despair and to leave these
issues to the specialist and technicians who understand the details of each one of them. But
experience shows that that way seldom achieves results; more often it simply results in
deadlock. What is needed is for politicians and leaders of governments to give their
negotiators a firm lead; to promote the issues of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament
much higher up their own and the international agenda than has been the case for a good
number of years; and to be ready themselves to take difficult and sensitive decisions when
that is required in order to make progress. If that is not done, then I very much fear that an
area of international relations which has a massive potential to affect international peace
and security and which had made considerable progress towards that kind of rules-based
system which we would all like to see more widespread, could slip further back towards
unilateralism and insecurity. That is surely something worth making a major effort to avoid.

VERIFICATION
GEN. SIR HUGH BEACH
Verification is a process of finding out whether a State party is doing what it has promised to
do. There are as many versions of verification as there are such agreements: ranging from
the IRA putting its weapons beyond use, to those covering anti-personnel mines, chemical
weapons or nuclear missiles.
The International Atomic Energy Agency
Today we are talking about the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 1 Under this treaty
states are required to enter into safeguards agreements with the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) which then has the job of verifying compliance. The IAEA has a
tough job for two reasons. First its verification role has to compete, both politically and in
terms of resources, with its other primary role, which is promoting the peaceful uses of
nuclear energy. And it is tough, secondly, because the agency is trying to prove a double
negative i.e. that such and such a country is not, somehow, somewhere, trying to cheat on
its promise not to try and build a nuclear weapon. Some 40 states, mostly in Western
Europe or the Americas, have significant nuclear activities that need to be checked. In all
there are now 439 power stations or research centres. Most of them are based on lowenriched
uranium, small, well organised and controlled. But on top of that are another 37
proposals for new nuclear power stations and some 300 in the planning process.
The Agency is governed by a 35-member Board of Governors, drawn from the member
states with the most advanced nuclear technology and others that are the principal
producers of nuclear source material. It has a Secretariat based in Vienna, headed by an
Egyptian diplomat, Mohamed ElBaradei - winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005 - whose
third and last term as Director General ends in November. 2 The agency has regional
offices in Toronto and Tokyo and research laboratories in Austria, Monaco and Trieste. Its
budget for 2009 is €296 million, of which €117 million is for nuclear verification and a further
€24 million for nuclear safety and security. The Agency has 2300 professional and support
staff drawn from more than 90 countries. 560 of these are inspectors, the largest number in
the Agency’s history.
Full-scope safeguards
All non-nuclear weapon state party to the NPT are required by the treaty to conclude a
‘comprehensive’ or ‘full-scope’ safeguards agreement with the IAEA. This means that they
declare to the IAEA all their nuclear facilities (which, by definition, are assumed to be for
peaceful purposes) and all nuclear materials. These are subject to verification -
‘safeguarded’ - by the IAEA to make sure there is no squirreling away for warlike purposes
of a ‘significant quantity’ of nuclear material. 3 Traditional safeguards focus on accountancy
and control of nuclear materials, to make sure that that quantities of declared nuclear
materials remain at safeguarded sites or can otherwise be accounted for. In addition to this
nuclear book-keeping, the Agency uses routine on-site inspections and passive
‘containment and surveillance’ measures such as tamper-resistant seals and surveillance
cameras. The recognised nuclear weapon states (China, France, Russia, the UK and US)
are not required to accept comprehensive safeguards, but all have made ‘voluntary offers’,
accepting safeguards on certain facilities as a token of goodwill.

Shortcomings
When agreed in the 1970s these safeguards were considered an adequate political
compromise in balancing intrusiveness and comprehensiveness with cost and respect for
national sovereignty. In time, serious shortcomings came to light. The worst was that the
IAEA could only monitor materials and facilities declared to it by states parties, allowing
would-be proliferators to develop substantial undeclared nuclear capabilities without being
spotted. While a so-called special inspection (the equivalent of a ‘challenge’ inspection in
other disarmament regimes) could be requested in cases where there was strong suspicion
of cheating, these have been difficult to invoke. Inspections have taken place once in
Romania, twice in Iran (of military sites) and once in Syria, but when one was ordered in
1993 for North Korea, the country simply refused.
A second limitation is that nuclear safeguards allow states to assemble many of the
elements of a future nuclear weapons programme, such as uranium enrichment, as long as
they declare this to be for peaceful purposes and subject them to safeguards. Having
mastered all of the relevant technologies, a state can legally withdraw from the NPT on
three months’ notice and begin to produce nuclear weapons perfectly legally. This is what
North Korea did, and what it is feared Iran may be planning to do.
A third weakness of classical safeguards lies in the fact that that the amount of verification
of any state is determined by the size of its nuclear industry, not by the likelihood of its noncompliance.
This has led to the wastage of resources on verifying states with large, well
developed nuclear industries, like Canada, that are not of proliferation concern, while
distracting attention from those that are, such as Iran.
Strengthened safeguards
While there had been debates about strengthening safeguards since the beginning, the
great impulse for reform was the discovery, after the 1990/91 Gulf War, of just how close
Iraq had come to acquiring nuclear weapons - despite having been subject to nuclear
safeguards for almost twenty years. In December 1993, the Board of Governors launched a
new programme in two parts.
The first part involved activities that could be done by the IAEA within its existing mandate
and legal authority, while Part 2 contained measures that would be possible only by
establishing a stronger legal basis. The latter evolved into the ‘Additional Protocol.’
IAEA initiatives under its existing authority
The IAEA began to apply so-called Part 1 measures in 1995 to all states with full scope
safeguards agreements. These included requesting additional information on facilities that
formerly contained nuclear materials subject to safeguards but no longer did so, or which
were expected to do so in future; increasing the level of remote monitoring of movements of
nuclear material; expanding the use of unannounced inspections; and collecting
environmental samples at sites to which the Agency already has access. These efforts have
been aided by the greater use of open source information including commercial satellite
imagery, as well as by intelligence provided by third parties and increased information
supplied by states parties themselves. Experiments with Part 1 measures when inspecting
North Korea was one of the reasons why the inspectors were kicked out.

Additional Protocols
In May 1997 the Board of Governors agreed a Model Additional Protocol. This extends
states parties’ declaration and reporting obligations to the entire life cycle of that state’s
nuclear industries. It includes everything from nuclear mining and processing to the storage
of nuclear waste, including the activities of any private firms involved. The Additional
Protocol requires states parties to report on the production of nuclear-related equipment;
nuclear-related imports and exports; nuclear fuel cycle-related research and development;
and future plans for nuclear facilities. The Protocol also expands the IAEA’s rights to
conduct inspections of nuclear industries, most importantly through ‘complementary access’.
This means the Agency can inspect any part of a declared nuclear facility, instead of only
the designated ‘strategic points’ that are accessible under full-scope safeguards.
Complementary access can be coupled with short-notice access to all facilities at a nuclear
site and with the possibility of collecting environmental samples outside declared locations.
The Additional Protocol increases the IAEA’s capacity to ensure that states parties’
declarations are complete, and improves its prospects for detecting undeclared nuclear
material and activities. This provides a much better basis for deterring a state from engaging
in prohibited activities.
Progress and problems in implementing strengthened safeguards
After a decade of efforts, the record of strengthened safeguards is mixed. Those that fall
under the IAEA’s existing authority have been slow to develop. As for the Additional
Protocols, by March this year 131 had been approved by the Board of Governors, 119 had
been signed and 90 had been brought into force. All five of the Nuclear Weapons States
now have Additional Protocols in Force (although only since January this year for the USA).
North Korea, which has been found in non-compliance with both the NPT and its nuclear
safeguards agreements, has not signed an Additional Protocol. Iraq and Iran have now
done so, and Libya has one protocol in force.
The failure of particular states to adopt strengthened safeguards does not necessarily mean
they intend to acquire nuclear weapons. It may simply result from legislative or other
technical difficulties, political or bureaucratic indifference, or incompetence. Some hold-outs,
such as Brazil, are in full compliance with their existing obligations, and resent being
pressed to accept increased verification when other countries retain nuclear weapons,
despite being bound under Article VI of the NPT to work towards their elimination or when
others have attempted to acquire nuclear weapon capabilities under cover of safeguards.
Another factor in the slow take-up rate of additional protocols is a lack of concern about the
dangers of nuclear proliferation among states that have relatively minor nuclear activities.
The IAEA has developed a Small Quantities Protocol, which involves simplified procedures
for states that have little or no amounts of nuclear material to report. The UN Security
Council in April 2004 adopted Resolution 1540 which required all UN member states to
adopt measures to prevent nuclear (and other WMD-related) materials falling into the hands
of terrorists and other non-state actors.
There is also resistance to strengthened safeguards from states concerned about the much
higher degree of transparency and intrusiveness involved. This is particularly evident among
the NWS. In addition to excluding all of their weapon-related nuclear activities from any 

safeguards they have offered little, if anything, in the way of expanded voluntary safeguards
on their peaceful nuclear activities. And it must be said that there is resistance within the
IAEA to inspecting the NWS, being seen as unnecessary. Other countries, like Brazil again,
are concerned that commercial proprietary information, in its case a new uranium
enrichment process invented by the Brazilian Navy, may be at risk from the new measures
required by the Additional Protocol.
Dr Mohamed ElBaradei argues that the only way, ultimately, to prevent NNWS from illicitly
acquiring their own highly enriched uranium or plutonium for weapons purposes is to restrict
any enrichment and reprocessing activity by individual states. He has suggested a
multinational system of supply that would be universal, equitable and non-political. Prime
Minister Brown, in his talk at Lancaster House on 17 March, gave strong support for this
idea 4 and proposed a clear and proactive role for the IAEA with an increase in powers and
resources. Almost half of the countries that enrich uranium already do so in joint ventures
commercially. In addition, the five NPT-acknowledged nuclear weapons states have already
stopped producing fissile material for weapons purposes and say they are ready to
negotiate a treaty forbidding this. If such a treaty was universally adopted there would be no
strategic need for national enrichment and reprocessing plants. For states newly seeking
nuclear power, enrichment makes no economic sense anyway. It is an expensive operation,
subject to large economies of scale, and enriched uranium fuel is readily available on the
international market. If a state’s primary motivation for seeking nuclear power is energy
security (rather than strategic security or national pride), then it should concentrate on the
technologies it really needs for this purpose - reactors, nuclear safety and waste disposal.
A dozen different proposals to assure the supply of enriched uranium fuel have been tabled
to date. These include a fuel bank under IAEA auspices, now supported by 31
governments, and a Russian plan to donate a sizeable amount of LEU produced by its
enrichment facility at Angarsk for guaranteed supply to any country meeting criteria
determined by the IAEA. But some developing countries see such proposals, despite their
voluntary nature, as a Trojan horse. Almost all of the ideas for guaranteed fuel supply have
emerged from the ranks of the existing technology holders.
One notable exception was a suggestion made by the Gulf Cooperation Council last year for
an extra-regional enrichment centre, perhaps in Switzerland, to supply enriched uranium
fuel to all the states of the Gulf. UAE, Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia this year all
affirmed an intention to forgo sensitive indigenous fuel-cycle technologies. Bravo!
We turn now to some case studies
South Africa: verifying nuclear disarmament.
In the early 1990s South Africa declared that it had dismantled an arsenal of six nuclear
devices, together with all its nuclear weapon production facilities, and sought IAEA
verification. This was the first time the Agency had been involved with actual nuclear
weapons development. The Agency had access to both the civil nuclear facilities and what
was left of military nuclear facilities after the South Africans had dismantled them. Having
inspected installations, materials and documents the IAEA was able to declare in 1994 that
the history of South African fissile material production had been fully accounted for and that
all remaining material had been put under safeguards. 

Iraq: cooperation with UNSCOM and UNMOVIC
IAEA verification activity in Iraq after the first Gulf War was even more intensive and groundbreaking.
The Agency was tasked by the Security Council to work in parallel with the UN
Special Commission (UNSCOM), and verify that Iraq was disposing of its nuclear
capabilities. Not only did the IAEA conduct wide-ranging inspections to ensure that Iraq had
declared all of its nuclear activities - the most intrusive the Agency had ever conducted - but
it also took part in supervised and verified destruction of designated nuclear facilities. So it
was able to close the file on Iraq’s nuclear capability and certify its verified destruction.
When UN inspectors re-entered Iraq in late 2002, under the aegis of the UN Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), the IAEA was allowed to continue with
its nuclear brief. Again it was able to verify, with more confidence than UNMOVIC was in
regard to CBW, that the nuclear file was closed and that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons
or the capability to produce them rapidly. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 the Agency
was again allowed to return and verify that all the nuclear material remaining there when the
war started was still accounted for. It found that much of the previously inspected and
sealed nuclear equipment had been dismantled and found its way into scrap yards in Jordan
and the Netherlands.
The IAEA gained invaluable experience from its work in Iraq. It was able to use and refine
new techniques, particularly environmental sampling, which have been of benefit in
implementing strengthened safeguards generally. It also learned lessons from being
involved in the type of hostile verification environment that it had not normally encountered
(except to some extent in North Korea). It was also able to develop appropriate verification
protocols for intrusive inspections; participate in multidisciplinary inspections and training
exercises; and get another foretaste of the tasks involved in verifying complete nuclear
disarmament. Finally, it was able to deal with intelligence information supplied by permanent
members of the Security Council, which purported to reveal Iraqi nuclear weapons
development, but which proved false or misleading. This improved the credibility of the
IAEA’s verification judgements.
North Korea: identifying non-compliance
Unlike the cases of South Africa, Iraq, Iran and Libya, where the IAEA was as surprised as
anyone else about the extent of the nuclear weapon-related activities, in North Korea the
Agency actually discovered the cheating. In 1993, soon after the country’s comprehensive
safeguards agreement entered into force, the IAEA began routine inspections to verify the
initial data declaration submitted by North Korea. The Agency discovered inconsistencies
which the North Koreans were unable to explain. As a result the Agency invoked its right to
a special inspection, for the first and only time. The North Koreans refused, setting off a
continuing compliance crisis.
The Agency had its first experience of verifying a freeze on a nuclear programme when,
under a 1994 US-North Korea ‘Agreed Framework’, it was asked to seal the nuclear facility
at Yongbyon and safeguard the nuclear materials there. But it was never allowed to do the
job properly. In 2002 its inspectors were expelled, its remote surveillance cameras disabled
and the seals at Yongbyon broken. In 2003, following American claims that it had started an
illegal uranium weapons program, North Korea gave its three months notice and withdrew
from the treaty, making it the first state to do so. In 2005, North Korea publicly declared that

it possessed nuclear weapons. In October, 2006, the North Korean foreign minister
announced that his country was planning to conduct a nuclear test and three days later the
United States Geological Survey detected a magnitude 4.2 seismic event 70 km north of
Kimchaek in North Korea indicating a nuclear episode. The North Korean government
announced shortly afterward that they had completed a successful underground test of a
nuclear fission device. This seems to have been true - with yield of about 1 kiloton.
Since 2003 talks have been in progress between China, North and South Korea, the USA,
Russia and China (six party talks). Five rounds of talks produced little progress - until
February 2007, when North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear facilities in exchange for
fuel aid and steps towards normalization of relations with America and Japan. But last
August North Korea abruptly stopped disabling its nuclear facilities. This followed a
disagreement with Washington over how to verify North Korea’s past nuclear activities. They
denied having agreed to allow collection of nuclear samples as part of the process, and sixparty
talks in December failed to resolve this dispute. But verification cannot be the real
reason things are held up, this must be political. In January North Korea said it would
denuclearize only after the establishment of formal diplomatic relations with the US,
cessation of Washington’s ‘hostile policy’, and removal of the US protective nuclear
umbrella over South Korea. China says it is doing all it can to get things moving again and
let’s hope it will succeed. The recent rocket test has hardly helped matters.
Libya: verifying nuclear dismantlement
The IAEA’s role in Libya was different again. When Libya announced in December 2003 that
it had decided to abandon its WMD programmes, the US and UK had already been in
consultations with the Libyan government and had carried out inspections of Libyan nuclear
facilities. Agreement was reached in January 2004 on a division of responsibilities: the IAEA
would work to verify and dismantle Libya’s capabilities while the UK and US would remove
and/or destroy the various components.
The Libyan experience added further to the IAEA’s verification repertoire. In addition to
inspections, the Agency was able to use its increasingly powerful environmental sampling
techniques. The Libyan programme, like that of Iran, was in part supplied by the illegal
nuclear smuggling ring led by A.Q. Khan, ‘father’ of the Pakistani nuclear weapon
programme. So the IAEA tried to track the extent and nature of his activity. This was another
first for the Agency.
Iran: attempting to verify non-compliance
Iran’s Safeguards Agreement came into force in 1974, but in the 1980s it launched a secret
uranium enrichment programme, also with help from the A.Q. Khan network. In its plant at
Natanz there are underground buildings sized to contain 50,000 gas centrifuges. An exile
group blew the gaff in August 2002, although Western intelligence agencies already knew.
When IAEA inspectors finally got there they documented 14 different ways in which Iran had
violated its safeguards agreements over a period of 18 years. This activity, as I have already
suggested, makes no economic sense. No other country has built a uranium enrichment
plant without having a working reactor to use the stuff. It would be far cheaper to buy
enriched uranium, as Iran is already doing for its officially recognised reactor built by the
Russians at Bushehr. The United States, Britain and four other powers have offered Iran
civil nuclear cooperation as part of a package of incentives to try to persuade Tehran to stop

uranium enrichment. But the most damning evidence of a weapons programme came from
the hard drive of a computer, turned over to an American embassy in the Middle East by a
walk-in defector in 2004. In addition to descriptions of one of the steps in converting uranium
ore into gaseous form for use in centrifuges, there were designs for a ballistic missile reentry
vehicle to carry an object like a nuclear warhead and others suggestive of explosive
triggers to compress HEU spheres into a critical mass. This evidence has never been
satisfactorily explained. The most plausible conclusion is that Iran is aiming to achieve a
nuclear weapons capability, if not the weapon itself. But this may well be less for deterrence
than for the prestige that such advanced technologies bestow.
The IAEA has done well in Iran. The Agency was able to reveal, for instance, that centrifuge
equipment was contaminated with uranium enriched to a much higher level than the
Iranians admitted and that the source of the enriched uranium was not Iran. This forced
them to admit that the equipment had been imported. If and when Iran’s Additional Protocol
is implemented, the Agency stands to gain experience for the first time in applying those
measures to a state that is already widely suspected of non-compliance.
Some technical issues.
Nuclear forensics.
Nuclear forensics have achieved extraordinary sensitivity. It is now is almost impossible to
sanitize radioactively contaminated surfaces or to avoid the detection of leakages of
radioactive gaseous or liquid effluents. For example, analysis of environmental samples -
airborne particles, water, deposited or sedimented materials - is capable of detecting the
presence of uranium down to a few million, billion, billionth parts of a gram. And it is now
technically possible to trace fissile material, or even debris from a bomb, back to its source.
Every step in the fuel cycle - mining the ore, converting it into uranium hexafluoride gas,
enriching the uranium and reprocessing the spent fuel - leaves traces that can identify
where on the planet the material came from. Ores have different mixtures of elements –
uranium, americium or polonium - which emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation at different
rates. The mix of isotopes differs from one type of reactor to another. After a bomb
detonates, by analysis of the debris, identifying unique attributes of the fissile material
including its impurities and contaminants, one can trace the path back to its origin and also
find clues about bomb design. But so far the necessary global database of uranium
compounds and the tools to use it have not been developed.
Excess fissionable material verification
Moves have been underway for almost a decade for the IAEA to verify the destruction of
warheads both in the US and Russia. The so-called Trilateral Initiative, launched in 1996,
involved the three parties in examining the technical, legal and financial problems for the
IAEA in verifying that material removed from warheads was not returned to weapons use
and that other fissile material declared surplus to defence programmes was also not
diverted. Under a voluntary offer the US already has some such materials under safeguards.
A Model Verification Agreement was finalized in September 2002 as the basis for bilateral
accords between the Agency and the two states. A deadlock remains, however, over
funding for the programme.
Much of the technical work carried out under the Trilateral Initiative over the past five
Years has been devoted to inventing a verification technique that could allow inspectors to
make measurements on the components of nuclear weapons without any possibility that
they might discover details of the design. Every possible measurement method has been
considered, beginning with those currently used by the IAEA in safeguarding plutonium and
highly enriched uranium in non nuclear-weapon States. They found that every method could
reveal weapon secrets if inspectors were allowed access to the raw measurement data.
Measurements would have to be carried out in ways that would block the quantitative
measurement information from view. Under the accepted scheme, the actual measured
results of a suite of tests are compared with unclassified reference points. The outcomes
show that the actual results are either greater than or less than the reference values, thus
verifying a defined “attribute”. This technique is referred to as “attribute verification with
information barriers.” It makes it impossible for any secret information to be revealed, and at
the same time, makes it possible for the Agency to conclude that the verification is credible
and independent. 5 Work on an information barrier has also been carried out by the British
and Norwegian governments, monitored by VERTIC. It is also based on the attribute system,
but is a bit cheaper and the design, we think, is a bit better. It’s also easier to authenticate.
Its main advantage is that it’s been jointly developed by a NWS and a NNWS, which means
that it is certifiable by both.
Notes:
1. There are 189 states party to the treaty, only India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea are not.
2. Front runners to replace him are the Ambassadors of Japan (Yukia Amano) and South Africa (Abdul Samad
Minty)
3. The IAEA defines a ‘significant quantity’ as eight kilograms of plutonium and uranium-233, 25
kilograms of uranium-235 enriched to 20 per cent or more, 75 kilograms of uranium-235 enriched
to less than 20 per cent, 10 tonnes of natural uranium and 20 tonnes of depleted uranium.
4. As did Presidents Medvedev and Obama in their joint statement on 1 April.
5. At present, contracts are being concluded for the production of the first attribute verification system for
plutonium with classified characteristics for use in a specific facility. The contracts also provide for plutonium
reference materials to be used by the IAEA that will alternatively pass and fail all of the attributes in the test
suite. The measurement system and the reference materials will be certified by the security officials of the
State, and will be authenticated for use by the IAEA. A security watchdog system will disable it in the event
that any access way is opened, and the computational block and transmission devices to the inspectors’
readout provide the agreed outcomes without breaching security restrictions. All the instruments will have to
be manufactured in the country where they are going to be used. The country itself will have to certify them
and its certification will include normal industrial concerns plus certification against espionage to make sure
that IAEA inspection does not lead to any release of classified information. The bulk of this work has been
carried out at laboratories in the two States and at the IAEA. More work is needed to reach the point where
this measurement system can be certified by both States and the IAEA. The technique consists of a neutron
multiplicity assay system integrated with a high resolution gamma ray spectrometry system, within a special
environment that can prevent classified information from being transmitted or otherwise conveyed beyond its
borders, and prevent any external signals from tampering with the operation of the system.

THE FUTURE OF THE NPT: INDIA’S VIEW
LT.GEN. (Retd.) V.R. RAGHAVAN
Over the course of its four decades long existence, the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
(NPT) had established an indispensable yet imperfect set of interlocking nonproliferation
and disarmament obligations and standards. Even that less than perfect nuclear
nonproliferation regime is seen to be at a critical juncture.
It is best to start by reiterating that India is not a signatory state to the NPT. India’s definition
of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation is at some variance with the views of
other countries1. India views disarmament as referring to concrete reductions in nuclear
arsenals with the ultimate objective of achieving a nuclear-free world. It does not envisage it
as replacing existing arsenals by new categories of nuclear weapon systems. The
perception of arms control is that by addressing the issue piecemeal it merely tends to
perpetuate nuclear weapons in the hands of a few chosen nations. Non-proliferation is
mainly seen as an extension of the arms control regime.
India’s approach to nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, and by extension to
arms control is primarily based on the belief that there exists close synergy between all
three. Non-proliferation cannot be an end in itself, and has to be linked to effective nuclear
disarmament. Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation should be seen as mutually
reinforcing processes. Effective disarmament must enhance the security of all States and
not merely that of a few.
In June 1988, the then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, had presented to the United
Nations an ‘Action Plan for ushering in a nuclear weapons-free world and non-violent order’,
which outlined India’s imperatives. At the heart of the Action Plan was a commitment to
eliminate all nuclear weapons in stages by 2010. In the twenty years that have gone by
there has been the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995, the complete failure of the NPT
Review in 2005, and the world is facing the prospect of the 2010 NPT Review with
uncertainty. There is encouragingly a revived discourse on disarmament. India has taken
note of the initiatives in this regard launched by four eminent statesmen – Dr. Kissinger,
George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn, whose ideas are now included in the ‘Hoover
Plan’. India’s Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh enumerated India’s position on June 9,
2008, and again when he addressed the UN General Assembly in September 2008. The
essential theme of both the speeches was a reiteration of India’s support for a Nuclear
Weapons Convention and endorsement of a nuclear weapons-free world.
In a landmark declaration, India as a nuclear weapons state formally proposed two
multilateral agreements and two global conventions in a detailed framework for nuclear
1 M.K. Narayanan, Address by NSA at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, in Strategic Digest, Vol. 39, No. 3,
March 2009.

disarmament at the Conference on Disarmament in February 20082. India’s seven point
agenda for disarmament was delineated as the following:
1. Reduction of the salience of nuclear weapons in security doctrines
2. Negotiation of a an agreement on no-first use of nuclear weapons among nuclear
weapon states
3. Negotiation of a universal and legally binding agreement on non-use of nuclear
weapons against non-nuclear weapon states
4. Negotiation of a convention on the complete prohibition of the use or threat of use of
nuclear weapons
5. Negotiation of a nuclear convention prohibiting development, stockpiling and
production of nuclear weapons, moving towards a global, non-discriminatory and
verifiable elimination of these weapons.
6. Unequivocal commitment of all nuclear weapon states to reduce risks and dangers
arising from possibility of accidental use of these weapons.
7. Adoption of additional measures by nuclear states to reduce risks and dangers
arising from possibility of accidental use of these weapons.
The Future
The statement that the NPT regime is in crisis begs the question on what really is in crisis:
the non-proliferation regime or the NPT? Those close to the negotiations in Geneva about
the forthcoming Review Conference of the NPT suggest that it is the regime that is in trouble
and not the NPT itself, while others disagree. There is considerable confusion on the
subject. This has important implication for India and other nuclear weapon states outside
the NPT, whose primary objective is not to the regime so much as to the NPT. India
exemplifies this approach well. New Delhi has long opposed the NPT but also supported the
fundamental core of the regime, the opposition to the spread of nuclear weapons. After
1998, India has been caught between asserting its NWS status independently of the Treaty
and seeking entry into the NPT, as befits a “responsible” nuclear power. For nuclear
wannabe states like India, a new NPT would not be a bad thing. If it is the NPT that is in
trouble rather than the regime, this might actually be an opportunity, since there would be
an incentive in changing the NPT but keeping the regime. On the other hand, if it is the
regime that is in trouble rather than the NPT, further proliferation would be inevitable and
dangerous. Thus a collapsing regime would be in no one’s interest.3
India is not party to the NPT and has therefore refrained from officially commenting on what
needs to be done in the future. It has however reaffirmed its commitment to the nonproliferation
and disarmament issue in many ways.
2 Statement by Hamid Ali Rao, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to the Conference on Disarmament, February 28,
2008. [www.mea.gov.in] [Accessed on 4 April 2009]
3 Rajesh Rajagopalan, “ Prospects for Nuclear Non Proliferation Regime” in Emerging Nuclear Proliferation
Challenges edited by C. Uday Bhaskar & C. Raja Mohan, Institute for Defence Studies & Analysis, New Delhi, April
2005. 

i. India has pledged belief to a moratorium on nuclear tests
ii. It has promised not to come in the way of CTBT entering into force
iii. It has agreed to join the FMCT negotiation when they commence
iv. It has effective legislation and processes in place to ensure there is no transfer of
nuclear technologies or material from India
v. It has signed India-specific safeguards with the IAEA
vi. India has pledged itself to a No First Use doctrine.
India has thus subjected itself to the provisions of the NPT, as other Nuclear Weapons
State. It has also harmonized its export controls with the NSG and MTCR member states.
The Indian authorities and the strategic community had watched with dismay at the failure of
the 2005 NPT Review Conference.
India has observed the inaction on the 13 Steps proposal. It looks forward to a constructive
outcome at the 2010 NPT Review Conference. The International Commission on Nuclear
Non Proliferation & Disarmament, to which I am an Advisor, is working energetically to bring
forth recommendations to reinvigorate the NPT at the 2010 Conference. Today’s
conference in Edinburgh is a timely and constructive endeavor to involve the civil society in
the NPT. I applaud the effort and am privileged to be part of it.

APPROACHES OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION
SERGEY ANDRIASHIN
Thank you very much for the invitation to participate in such an important forum here in
Edinburgh and for the possibility to share with you the approaches of the Russian
Federation towards the process of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation on the
threshold of the 2010 NPT Review Conference.
Scientific achievements and the use of advanced technologies offer unheard-of
opportunities for addressing the primary task for any State, i.e. to ensure sustainable
development and prosperity. The growing interdependence of the globalizing world and the
emerging multipolar system create a favorable environment for expanding international
cooperation with a view to taking maximum advantage of such opportunities for the benefit
of all the countries and peoples. On the other hand, the new global threats and the
aggravation of many existing ones, ranging from terrorism and proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction to climate change, require from the international community to come up
with a joint response. This is the imperative of the time.
Mankind has no other acceptable alternative but to ensure security collectively, through
working together. This task is too tough, both in financial and military terms, for a single
State or any narrow coalition to tackle. The very logic behind the evolution of present-day
international relations proves futility of unilateral and bloc-based schemes, particularly forceoriented
ones. Their champions are incapable of guaranteeing security even for themselves
and only show the limits of what such a response can achieve. But the main thing is that
such actions undermine stability by forcing other countries to take care of their security on
their own. And this, as a rule, does damage to non-proliferation.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is a main element of the modern
international security system. Providing the effectiveness and stable functioning of the NPT,
its further advance towards universality remains indisputable priority for the Russian
Federation. The Treaty is demanded; the new threats to the regime of the nuclear nonproliferation
that arise recently can be and must be eliminated, and first of all on its basis.
The important thing is to ensure further effectiveness of the NPT proceeding from the unity
of its three fundamental elements: non-proliferation, peaceful uses of atomic energy and
disarmament.
It is evident that one of the main priorities in the recent Review process is the issues of the
nuclear disarmament. In this connection the Russian Federation confirms its commitment
to the article VI of the NPT and goals of reaching the world free from nuclear weapons.
Although we have to admit that the path towards this goal is not an easy one and “global
zero” can be achieved only in conditions of strengthening the strategic stability and
steadfast adherence the principle of the equal security for all. This suggests the realization
of the complex of measures vital for providing sustained development of the disarmament
process.
Taking into consideration the fundamental role of the Russian-US agreements on limitation
and reduction of strategic offensive arms and their key importance to real nuclear missile 

disarmament, the Russian Federation intends to move forward on the path of further
limitation and reduction of this arms as it stated in the Joint statement of the president of the
Russian Federation D.Medvedev and the president of the USA B.Obama on the 1st of April
this year. In this regard both sides will aim to reach the levels of reduction of strategic
offensive arms that will be lower than 1700-2200 warheads each as stated in the recently
active Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) of 2002.
At the same time we are of the opinion that strategic stability can no longer remain an
exclusive domain of Russian-US relations. This residual bipolarity needs to be overcome
through opening up this sphere to all interested states prepared to actively cooperate with a
view to strengthening common security. It is our strong belief that such cooperation should
be based on equality, mutual respect, a constructive dialogue, joint analysis and due
account of the interests of all the sides in working out and making decisions.
We consider as an important vector of strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime
the enhancement of efficiency of the verification activity of International Atomic Energy
Agency. The effective instrument of the enhancement of possibilities of the Agency is the
Additional Protocol to the Safeguards Agreement. Its application allows timely preventing
and eliminating emerging non-proliferation concerns.
Russia ratified the Additional Protocol in October 2007. We hope that all countries that have
not yet acceded to this important document and first of all those carrying out major nuclear
activities or having considerable stocks of nuclear materials will do so as soon as possible.
We will continue our efforts aimed at recognition of the Additional Protocol along with the
Agreement as a universally accepted standard to verify the compliance of States with their
NPT non-proliferation obligations as well as an essential new standard in the field of nuclear
supply arrangements. We are of the opinion that the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties
to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons could adopt a relevant
recommendation.
Serious challenge of our times is unsettled issues of regional non-proliferation, including the
problem of North Korea and the situation around Iranian nuclear programme. We stand
for the settlement of these issues by political and diplomatic means. We suppose that
providing for the coming into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as soon
as possible can be an important measure in strengthening nuclear non-proliferation regime
and progressive advance of the disarmament progress as well as starting of the
development of the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty in the framework of the Conference of
Disarmament in Geneva.
We are positive that the ban of the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons
purposes has to become the next logical step in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation
process. Russia has stopped the production of the fissile materials more than ten years ago.
Weapon-grade uranium has not been produced in our country since 1989. The last
remaining reactor producing weapon-grade plutonium is planned to be stopped in 2010 and
before this it will be used as a power and heat supply source. 

The Russian Federation also stands for the creation of the zones free from nuclear weapons
which, in our opinion, contributes to the strengthening of the NPT as well as the level of the
regional and international security as a whole.
Another important issue of the recent process is providing for the equal, guaranteed and
unimpeded access for all the participants of the NPT to the benefits of the peaceful atom
taking into consideration their strict fulfillment of the international non-proliferation
obligations.
We suggest working together on nuclear energy development patterns allowing for steady
nuclear fuel supplies programmes based on international cooperation as an alternative to
proliferation of sensitive technologies.
Today countries are increasingly interested in developing nuclear energy as a reliable
resource ensuring their energy security. This is a natural process. It gives ample
opportunities for international cooperation. First of all, specific measures should be taken to
supply countries developing their own atomic energy with nuclear fuel in a reliable and
assured manner.
One can often hear that a country cannot completely depend on the situation in the market
or on the political will of some States. These are legitimate concerns. We think they can be
allayed on the basis of multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle, intended to provide
an economically reasonable and feasible alternative to establishing all its elements at a
national level. And we do not question the unalienable right of the Parties to the NPT to
develop research, production and uses of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It is up to
each country to decide on its own how to exercise this sovereign right. Yet, we believe that
conditions should be created allowing for the best options both in terms of national interests
and non-proliferation.
No doubt, it is the IAEA that is to play the central role in advancing multilateral approaches,
and Russia actively supports the Agency in this area. In recent years, many initiatives have
been put forward in this field. The former Russian President, Vladimir Putin, suggested we
work together to develop global nuclear energy infrastructure and to set up multinational
centers to provide nuclear fuel cycle services. Our first step was to establish the
International Uranium Enrichment Center on the basis of the enrichment plant in Angarsk.
Kazakhstan takes part in it, with Armenia finalizing its accession procedures. Those
participating in the Center will have a guaranteed access to enrichment services to meet
their nuclear fuel needs without developing their own production facilities.
Moreover, Russia has proposed to stockpile low-enriched uranium in the Center under the
IAEA management. Materials from this stockpile are to be supplied to third countries by the
decision of the Agency if they are denied fuel for political reasons. Any country honoring its
non-proliferation obligations can take advantage of this guaranteed stockpile. Russia is
prepared to work with all interested countries to specify and combine, if possible, all
initiatives in developing multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle. It is important now
to focus on their implementation. The Declaration on Nuclear Energy and Non-Proliferation:
Joint Actions, signed by Presidents of Russia and the US on July 3, 2007, pursues this 

particular objective. We also believe that United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
(UNIDIR) through its respective project will contribute to this important goal.
Our common goal is to keep making efforts to render the NPT universal, more efficient and
viable, as well as to reinforce it. We stand for finding ways to bring the States that are not
legally bound by the NPT under the Treaty regime, including through improving national
systems of accounting, verification and physical protection of nuclear materials, as well as
export control.
In the new age, the goal of any state is to play and to win in the world competitive struggle,
rather than on battlefield. Russia's entire foreign policy is oriented towards preserving the
historic prospect for an independent development, truly based on its identity, in the family of
other nations that has been offered to it for the first time. This will be impossible without
continuing accelerated social and economic growth in the country, which will be one of the
key guarantees of our security. Externally, Russia's security should be ensured by a more
just and genuinely democratic architecture of international relations. Unfortunately, the world
that shook off "the Cold War", has so far failed to attain a new equilibrium. The conflict
potential, including in the areas close to the Russian frontiers, is very high.
That is why we have been consistently favoring collective actions being reaffirmed and legal
principles strengthened in regional and global affairs on the basis of the UN Charter and
recognition of indivisibility of security and development in the modern world. That is why we
favor setting up open collective security systems, first of all the formation of a single security
space in the Euro-Atlantic area. We are convinced that there is no need for security against
each other or against anyone; we need security against transnational threats.
That is why we favor maintaining continuity in the process of disarmament and arms control,
its further development in terms of treaties and law and in the spirit of strategic openness.
Thank you very much. 

CHINA AND NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION
COUNSELOR MR. YI ZHENG
The presentations this morning were valuable and instructive. The Eighth NPT Review
Conference to be held in 2010 will be a significant event in international arms control,
disarmament and non-proliferation. It is therefore timely and beneficial for us to discuss how
to reach positive results at the Review Conference. Allow me to brief you on China’s views
and positions.
During the past 40 years, the NPT has played an irreplaceable role in nuclear disarmament,
non-proliferation, and promoting international cooperation in peaceful use of nuclear energy.
In the new situation, NPT is faced with severe challenges as well as opportunities.
On one hand, there is still a long way to go in the nuclear disarmament process;
international nuclear non-proliferation system requires improvement, and regional hotspots
nuclear issues remain unresolved; due to climate change and rising energy demand, the
international community is facing a new surge in the development of nuclear energy.
On the other hand, the international community has put forward ideas and initiatives on
strengthening the international nuclear non-proliferation system and achieving the goal of a
nuclear-weapon-free world. All these have produced hard-won opportunities for advancing
nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation process.
Whether NPT is widely-recognized, authoritative, or effective depends on how much the
NPT Review Conference will contribute to meeting the above challenges.
All parties should adopt a new security concept based on mutual trust and benefit, equality
and cooperation. They should promote cooperation, adhere to multilateralism, respect each
other’s interests, and deal with the three major pillars of nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation
and peaceful use of nuclear energy in a comprehensive and balanced way.
This will help to strengthen the international nuclear non-proliferation system, and advance
multilateral arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation progress effectively, which is in
the fundamental interest of all parties.
On nuclear disarmament, one of NPT’s important objectives is to advance international
nuclear disarmament and build a nuclear-weapon-free world. This will go a long way to
prevent nuclear weapon proliferation, enhance mutual trust among countries, and improve
the international security environment.
China stands for the following:
Firstly, all nuclear-weapon states should make an explicit pledge to completely prohibit and
thoroughly destroy nuclear weapons, and conclude an international treaty based on this.
Secondly, pending this, all nuclear-weapon states should promise not to be the first to use
nuclear weapons, and not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclearweapon
states or nuclear-weapon-free zones. 

Thirdly, nuclear-weapon states should abandon nuclear deterrence strategy based on first
use of nuclear weapons, reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their national security
policies, and stop research and development of new types of nuclear weapons.
Fourthly, nuclear disarmament should follow the guidelines of maintaining global strategic
balance and stability, and undiminished security for all. The principle that nuclear
disarmament should be a just and reasonable process of gradual reduction toward a
downward balance should also be followed. Countries possessing the largest nuclear
arsenals bear special and primary responsibilities for nuclear disarmament. They should
reach new treaties on further reduction of nuclear arsenals; continue to reduce their nuclear
arsenals in a verifiable and irreversible manner so as to create conditions for achieving the
ultimate goal of complete and thorough nuclear disarmament.
Finally, nuclear disarmament is closely related to international strategic security. Weapon
deployment, establishment and deployment of missile defense systems or conduct related
cooperation in outer space are by no means conducive, either to safeguarding global
strategic balance and stability, or to the efforts of international arms control and nonproliferation.
Being a nuclear-weapon state, China has never evaded its due responsibilities and
obligations in nuclear disarmament. China has been consistently standing for complete
prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons, and actively promoting the
international nuclear disarmament process. Ever since the first day when it came into
possession of nuclear weapons, China solemnly announced not to be the first to use
nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances. China also unconditionally
undertook not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon
states or nuclear-weapon-free zones. Among all nuclear-weapon states, China is the only
state that has made the above promise. China has exercised utmost restraint on the
development of its nuclear weapons. China has never taken part and will never take part in
any nuclear arms race.
China supports and is committed to the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and continue to keep the moratorium on nuclear testing before the
CTBT comes into force. China supports a non-discriminatory and multilateral Fissile Material
Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) that can be effectively inspected internationally and shall be reached
through negotiation, and hopes that Conference on Disarmament (CD) will launch the treaty
negotiation at an earlier date based on a work plan accepted by all parties.
On nuclear non-proliferation issues, nuclear weapon proliferation has posed a serious threat
to international peace and security. Enhancing the international system of nuclear nonproliferation
and eliminating the risk of proliferation are important and pressing issues for the
international community. The proliferation of nuclear weapons has its complicated root
causes, and an integrated approach must be adopted to address both the symptoms and
the root causes.
China maintains that first of all, proliferation of nuclear weapons is closely related to
international and regional security environments. The international society should make 

efforts to build an international security environment of cooperation and trust, respect for
each other’s security interests and common security in order to fundamentally eliminate the
motive to seek nuclear weapons.
Secondly, to adhere to dialogue and negotiation to properly deal with non-proliferation
issues. Pressure, sanctions or the use of force will not effectively resolve anti-proliferation
issues but will cause and intensify conflicts.
Thirdly, to adhere to a just and non-discriminatory international non-proliferation regime, and
to avoid adoption of double standards. We should strengthen IAEA’s role of safeguarding
and supervision and promote extensive acceptance of Comprehensive Safeguards
Agreements and Additional Protocols, and further improve the international mechanism for
nuclear export control.
China faithfully fulfils its non-proliferation obligations under the NPT, firmly stands against
any form of nuclear weapon proliferation, supports and takes an active part in international
nuclear non-proliferation efforts. China has joined all relevant international treaties and
mechanisms in the nuclear field. China has strictly enforced Security Council Resolution
1540 and other resolutions related to non-proliferation, strengthened its efforts in nuclear
export control, established a complete system of laws and regulations in line with
international practice, and has been committed to multilateral and bilateral non-proliferation
exchanges and cooperation. As a Permanent Member of UN Security Council, China has
been consistently calling for peaceful resolution of Korean and Iranian Nuclear issues, and
has made unremitting efforts and important contributions to settle the above issues.
Peaceful use of nuclear energy is one of NPT’s important pillars as well as an unalienable
right under the NPT. The right of non-nuclear-weapon states to peaceful use of nuclear
energy shall be respected and safeguarded under the precondition that they accept IAEA
safeguards. China is opposed to the attempt to restrict or deprive non-nuclear-weapon
states of the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy in the name of non-proliferation. At the
same time, we also oppose proliferation of nuclear weapons under the disguise of peaceful
use of nuclear energy.
At present, the international society including the United Kingdom has put forward different
initiatives on building a multilateral mechanism to safeguard and provide nuclear fuel. China
in principle supports all efforts for enhancing international nuclear non-proliferation system
and to promote cooperation in peaceful use of nuclear energy and is open to the above
initiatives. But at the same time, we realize that relevant initiatives involve political,
commercial, technical and legal issues and are therefore very complicated and sensitive.
We believe that the building of relevant mechanisms shall follow 4 principles. First, the
mechanism concerned should not affect or deprive countries of the right to peaceful use of
nuclear energy under NPT.
Second, the mechanism concerned shall be placed into a credible multilateral framework,
which we prefer to be put under IAEA’s management and control. 

Third, the mechanism concerned should be non political and non discriminatory with
objective and uniform standard and free from political influence.
Fourth, the mechanism concerned should be open. We hope that all parties will continue to
conduct an extensive and thorough discussion on it, and reach a pragmatic, flexible and
widely-acceptable plan.
China is ready to work with all other parties to deliver productive outcome of the 2010 NPT
Review Conference, and contribute to further advancing the international nuclear
disarmament and non-proliferation process, and finally realize a nuclear-free world.
I wish our conference a success. Thank you

FROM HIROSHIMA TOWARDS THE TOTAL ELIMINATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
MR. KENICHI SUGANUMA
Thank you very much for allowing me to speak at this Conference on the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty. Since most of the previous speakers, apart from Ambassador
Chidyausiku and Ambassador Duarte, are from Nuclear Countries, I thought it is important
to provide views from Non-Nuclear Countries too, and also the view from Japan, which is
the only country to have suffered the devastation of nuclear bombings.
The nuclear non-proliferation scene is rapidly changing now, and the Japanese Government
is still considering its detailed policy towards next year’s NPT Review Conference. So I am
not going to make an official Japanese Government statement on this occasion, but I will
certainly try to reflect the main points of the current Government’s thinking.
Challenges to the NPT
Let me first talk about the issues related to the NPT.
Japan, as the only country to experience the devastation of nuclear bombings, has
consistently advocated that the international community should work together towards
realizing a world that is safe and free of nuclear weapons on the earliest possible date. It is
in this context that Japan places great importance on maintaining and strengthening the
NPT, which we view as being essential for improving the security environment, and which is
the cornerstone of the current nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.
The NPT, however, is facing many challenges. Firstly, progress on nuclear disarmament is
imperative for maintaining and strengthening the NPT. On this account, we welcome and
strongly support President Obama’ s clear statement of his intention to seek realistic and
concrete ways for achieving “a world without nuclear weapons” that is peaceful and safe.
We do hope that the announced negotiations on a new treaty to succeed the START I by
the end of this year will be successful. Furthermore, it should be emphasized that it is
important that all nuclear–weapon States reduce their arsenals with transparency. The
principle of irreversibility and verifiability to these nuclear disarmament measures should be
applied.
Secondly, the unilateral declaration of withdrawal from the NPT and proclamation of nuclear
testing is another serious challenge we face. We are also threatened by the potential risk of
covert nuclear weapons development disguised under the right to peaceful uses of nuclear
energy as well as by nuclear terrorism. Furthermore, the worry of development and spread
of missiles, as shown by the recent firing by North Korea against Security Council
resolutions, and its reaction to international condemnations adds to our concerns. The
international community must make concerted efforts to address these issues, in particular,
to ensure that the relevant international agreements, including the NPT, are strictly complied
with. 

Thirdly, as the anticipated demand for clean energy grows, the question of how to balance
the needs of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and nuclear non-proliferation is a difficult
issue that the whole international community should tackle. In this regard, Japan is a model
country in terms of the peaceful use of nuclear energy, fully implementing the IAEA
safeguards, including the Additional Protocol. We believe that universalizing the IAEA
Additional Protocol is the most realistic and effective way to strengthen the international
non-proliferation regime, while respecting the right to its peaceful uses. This is why Japan
has been actively helping countries willing to conclude the Additional Protocol, both
financially and technically. We hope that all countries engaged in the peaceful use of
nuclear energy implement the highest level of IAEA safeguards.
Lastly, dedicated efforts to further universalize the NPT are essential to strengthen the
credibility of the Treaty. Efforts to reach out to countries that have not yet joined the NPT
should be accelerated. Trying to gain broader recognition of disarmament and nonproliferation
issues in civil society, including among young people is also indispensable.
Japan attaches great importance to disarmament and non-proliferation education, whereby
we should spread recognition of the NPT’s role, as well as sharing knowledge and
experience of the immense destructive power and horror of nuclear weapons. This is why
we welcome wholeheartedly the organizing of this Conference, and are grateful for the
organizer, the United Nations Association – Edinburgh Branch’s efforts.
The 2010 NPT Review Conference will be a critical turning point where we must mobilize
our energy for maintaining and improving confidence in the NPT regime. Japan fully intends
to participate in the substantive discussions on nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and
the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and will endeavor to bring about the success of the
Review Conference. At the Review Conference, Japan will work with other States Parties to
breathe new life into the 13 steps on nuclear disarmament contained in the Final Document
of the 2000 NPT Review Conference. We will also seek agreement on a Final Document,
which was not achieved at the last Review Conference.
Towards a world safe and free of nuclear weapons
President Obama’s speech in Prague on a “world without nuclear weapons,” has given us
renewed hope to work jointly beyond the present status quo, to seek a new world based on
stability and harmony. Japan intends to continue strengthening cooperation with the
international community, including the United States in contributing to this process. On this
area, I would like to highlight the following four points:
First, with a view to a world free of nuclear weapons, the international community must
envisage a realistic approach to nuclear disarmament whereby international stability will not
be diminished on reaching the goal or in the process leading to that goal. The world has
now arrived at a stage where it should contemplate more concretely such an approach. I am
glad to have heard today too, several ideas about the approach to be taken, some more
realistic than others.
Second, the continuing nuclear arms reductions by the United States and the Russian
Federation, which made positive contributions to nuclear arms control in the past, are 

critically important. This is why, as I already mentioned, we welcomed the announcement by
President Obama to conclude negotiations on a new treaty to succeed the START I.
Third, concurrent with these efforts by the U.S. and Russia, we must build momentum
towards global nuclear disarmament so that every other nuclear-weapon State will take its
part in nuclear disarmament. I would like to remind you that the U.N. Resolution submitted
by Japan, entitled “Renewed determination towards the total elimination of nuclear
weapons”, and adopted at last year’s U.N. General Assembly with overwhelming support,
called upon all nuclear-weapon States to undertake reductions of nuclear weapons in a
transparent manner.
Fourth, the early entry-into-force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is
of utmost importance. Japan strongly hopes that all the countries whose ratification of the
CTBT is required, including the United States and China, will ratify the Treaty as soon as
possible. Furthermore, for the purpose of the early commencement of negotiations on a
fissile material cut-off treaty at the CD, Japan calls for the cooperation of all states to this
end. Pending the entry-into-force of such a treaty, we urge all the nuclear-weapon States
and non-NPT States Parties to declare a moratorium on the production of fissile material for
nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. This is why we welcomed President
Obama’s speech which contained these elements as well as other proposals, including a
new international effort on nuclear material management for preventing nuclear proliferation
to terrorists and on holding a “Global Summit on Nuclear Security.”
Let me also mention that we are also looking forward to the work of The International
Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) which was already
mentioned today, and to which General Raghavan is providing great contribution. We are
certain that it will produce a realistic, practical and action-oriented report on the road ahead.
By working jointly in the international community, and with civil societies, and taking
advantage of the new momentum created by President Obama’s speech and the
approaching NPT Review Conference, I am certain that we can make progress toward a
goal that humanity must continue to uphold, in order to prevent the horror and sufferings of
nuclear bombs again. The road may be long, but let us make as many steps as possible
when we can.
Thank you for listening. 

5. TOPICS RAISED IN THE ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS
i. Global Issues
- No first use of nuclear weapons
See Security Council (SC) Document A/C.1/53/L.48/REV.1
- Cut off of the production of fissile material
See for example General Assembly (GA) Resolution A/RES/LF8/75,
http://www.nti.org/db/china/nfuorg.htm and http://www.Nuclearfiles.org/menu/keyissues/
nuclear-weapons/issues/policies/no-first-use1995-04-05htm.
- Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
See for example (GA) A/C.1/63/L.55, http://www.ctbt.org/the-organization/
- Non NPT signatories should be encouraged to join a new NPT to accept them
as nuclear states
- The recognition that Article VI of the NPT provides the pathway to global security
- The positive outcomes that could arise from (nuclear) disarmament; the use of the
money saved/ development aid? Other forms of military expenditure? This is a
global issue interacting with other global issues viz. the global economic crisis; the
development of a green society; climate change. Requires a global summit (at the
UN in the next twelve months)
- The paramount importance of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of
Justice
ii. Local Issues
- 80% of the people of Scotland want to get rid of nuclear weapons
They recognise that nuclear weapons are unusable because present day wars are
conducted within populations of people
See for example http://www.acronym,org.uk/dd/dd85/85rel.htm and
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006.04/CoverStoryUKnuclear
- The effective moral leadership of relinquishing nuclear weapons
See (SC) S/RES/1718(2006)
iii. Regional Issues
- The technical problems of disposing of nuclear wastes, especially those resulting
from nuclear disarmament
See for example http://www.sea-us.org.au/wastenot.htm
- No replacement or updating of aging warheads
See for example
http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/GSN_20080912_BE15FEE4.php 

- ‘De-alerting’ of Russian and US missiles
See for example (SC) S/RES/1737(2006), (GA) GA/DIS/3322,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/russia/debate/comments.htm
- Bilateral Russian/US agreement to reduce numbers of missiles
See for example (GA)A/RES/48/75
- North Korea: no immediate solution in sight but we must not give up
See for example (SC) S/RES/1718(2006)
- Iran: The senior cleric has pronounced a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Is there a
difference between what the regime is saying and what it is doing?
See for example (SC) S/RES/1747(2007)
http://www.Globalissues.org/article/696/Iran
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10396
- India and China: Lack of transparency
- Israel and Pakistan: Two ‘elephants in the room’ that are being ignored
- All the above states act as a result of fear
iv. Education
- Importance of educating people of all ages about the nuclear problems
- Increasing public understanding of the issues - the value of UK Foreign and
Commonwealth Office publication ‘Lifting the Nuclear Shadow: Creating the Conditions
for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons’; Obama’s speech etc. in the briefing folder.
- The necessity for Civil Society to build support for the logic of nuclear
disarmament (as opposed to US and Russian politics)
See for example
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2004/11/00 krieger civil-society-initiatives.htm
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/civilsociety/
initiatives2007-2009.htm
- Public debate (eg the Kissinger/Nunn letter to the Wall Street Journal and the
pronouncements of the international Commission for Nuclear Non-proliferation
and Disarmament) to transmit urgency to governments at the 2020 NPT
Review Conference.
See for example http://www.nti.org/index.php 

6. REGISTERED PARTICIPANTS
Bruce Crawford MSP
Malcolm Chisholm MSP
Robin Harper MSP
Rt Hon. Dr. Gavin Strang MP
Jo Swinson MP
General Sir Hugh Beach MC
General V.R. Raghavan
Lord David Hannay CMG CH
Sergey Andriashin First Secretary, Russian Embassy
Consul-General Kenichi Suganuma (Japan, Edinburgh)
Counsellor Mr Yi Zheng, Embassy, People’s Republic of China
Vice Consul Gregory Antonenkov, Russia Edinburgh
Archie Blair, Political Counsellor, Mongolia Edinburgh
John Clifford, Honorary Consul, Austria Edinburgh
Consul Atushi Inoue. Japan Edinburgh
Consul General Wolfgang Moessinger, Germany Edinburgh
Vice Consul General Laoise Moore, Ireland Edinburgh
Consul Vitaly Pantus, Ukraine Edinburgh
Consul-General Reto Renggli, Switzerland Edinburgh
Kenneth H. Stewart, attache, Mongolia Edinburgh
Ms Pera Wells (Secretary General, WFUNA, New York)
Simon Tauer (Rapporteur, WFUNA, Vienna)
John Ainslie
Margaret Aitken
Nahid Aslam
Jean Leonel Awa
Ms Salamatu Balarabe
Morag Balfour
Mrs Winifred Bohrer
Matthew Brennan
Xenia Burlaca
Simon Byrom
Geoffrey Carnall
Rev Brian Cooper
Bill Copelton
Paul Currie
Professor A.M. Davie
Ms Kate Davies
Rev George Fatah Dim
Mrs Sakina Dim
Dr Gari Donn JP (Convenor, UNA Edinburgh) 

Rev. Hugh Drummond (Vice-Convenor, UNA Edinburgh)
Dora Elliot
Janet Fenton
Jane Forster
Dr. John M.Francis
Dr Alec Gaines (UNA Edinburgh, Convenor NPT Working Group)
Sarah Galloway
Mrs Panteha Ghari
Joan Gibson
Noel Harrower (UNA Exeter)
Elspeth Hough
Britta Huss
Morag Insley
Tatjana Jaekel
Eileen Guo Jiang
Deven Kainthola
Yumi Kanagaki
Oliver Lane (UNA Edinburgh, Convenor MUNGA Working Group)
Amanda Lim
Isobel Lindsay
Dr Rosaline Macauley
Rev. Peter MacDonald
John McFarlane
David McGill
Ruth McPake
Florence Makosso
Advocate John Mayer
Frances Mildmay (UNA Scotland)
Yadollah Mohammadi (UNA Iran)
The Hon. Olesgun Solomon Modeyin (Centre for Conflict Resolution. Nigeria)
Ms Anna Monro
Andrew Morton
Dr Multani
Ibnu Najib
Claire Newton
Ray Newton (UNA Edinburgh, Convenor Darfur Working Group)
Mrs Yvonna Nkonye (Centre for Conflict Resolution. Nigeria)
Amina Nurmurkhometove
Michael Oberreuter
Simeon Olawore Gambia
Pierre Pecheux
Rev Donald Prentice
Tristan Price
Ruby Raheem (UNA Edinburgh)
Bill Ramsay
Charles Reid (UNA Edinburgh, Treasurer)
Mr Masoud Riazi
Euan Robson 

Dr Patricia Robson
Malcolm Savidge (UNA Aberdeen)
Devin Scobie
Mrs Farzaneh Sedighi
Dr. Wally Shaw
Elizabeth (Liz) Sim (UNA Edinburgh, Secretary)
Sheila Skinner
Mrs Hilary Sloan
Dr Victor Spence
Penny Stone
Ali Syed
Mahmood Tavana (UNA Iran)
Mr Dabir Tehrani (UNA Edinburgh)
Ian Walford
Stuart Webster
Robert Williamson (UNA Edinburgh, Convenor Membership/Website Working Group)
Bonnie Worden
Robert Wyllie
4
7. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S PRAGUE SPEECH, 5 APRIL 2009
On 5 April 2009 in Prague, President Obama announced the new nuclear
weapons policy and strategy of the United States in significant detail. If any of
us at the Zagreb General Assembly in October 2005 (or even October 2008 in
Hyderabad) had even dreamed that an incumbent US President would have
launched a nuclear weapons initiative so specific, comprehensive, compelling
and pragmatic, we may have been invited to resign our fellowship on the
grounds of simple incredulity.
Here is the main body of President Obama's speech:
“Now, one of those issues that I'll focus on today is fundamental to the
security of our nations and to the peace of the world – that's the future of
nuclear weapons in the 21st century.
The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy
of the Cold War. No nuclear war was fought between the United States and
the Soviet Union, but generations lived with the knowledge that their world
could be erased in a single flash of light. Cities like Prague that existed for
centuries, that embodied the beauty and the talent of so much of humanity,
would have ceased to exist.
Today, the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have
not. In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone
down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up. More nations have
acquired these weapons. Testing has continued. Black market trade in
nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abound. The technology to build a
bomb has spread. Terrorists are determined to buy, build or steal one. Our
efforts to contain these dangers are centered on a global non-proliferation
regime, but as more people and nations break the rules, we could reach the
point where the center cannot hold.
Now, understand, this matters to people everywhere. One nuclear weapon
exploded in one city – be it New York or Moscow, Islamabad or Mumbai,
Tokyo or Tel Aviv, Paris or Prague – could kill hundreds of thousands of
people. And no matter where it happens, there is no end to what the
consequences might be – for our global safety, our security, our society, our
economy, to our ultimate survival.
Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be
checked – that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and
more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction. Such fatalism is a
deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is
inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of
nuclear weapons is inevitable.
Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for
the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century. And
as nuclear power – as a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power to have
43
used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.
We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.
So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek
the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. I'm not naive. This
goal will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take
patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us
that the world cannot change. We have to insist, "Yes, we can."
Now, let me describe to you the trajectory we need to be on. First, the United
States will take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons. To
put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in
our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same. Make no
mistake: As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a
safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that
defense to our allies – including the Czech Republic. But we will begin the
work of reducing our arsenal.
To reduce our warheads and stockpiles, we will negotiate a new Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russians this year. President Medvedev and I
began this process in London, and will seek a new agreement by the end of
this year that is legally binding and sufficiently bold. And this will set the stage
for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in this
endeavor.
To achieve a global ban on nuclear testing, my administration will immediately
and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty. After more than five decades of talks, it is time for the testing of
nuclear weapons to finally be banned.
And to cut off the building blocks needed for a bomb, the United States will
seek a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials
intended for use in state nuclear weapons. If we are serious about stopping
the spread of these weapons, then we should put an end to the dedicated
production of weapons-grade materials that create them. That's the first step.
Second, together we will strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a
basis for cooperation.
The basic bargain is sound: Countries with nuclear weapons will move
towards disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire
them, and all countries can access peaceful nuclear energy. To strengthen
the treaty, we should embrace several principles. We need more resources
and authority to strengthen international inspections. We need real and
immediate consequences for countries caught breaking the rules or trying to
leave the treaty without cause.
And we should build a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including
an international fuel bank, so that countries can access peaceful power
without increasing the risks of proliferation. That must be the right of every
nation that renounces nuclear weapons, especially developing countries
embarking on peaceful programs. And no approach will succeed if it's based
44
on the denial of rights to nations that play by the rules. We must harness the
power of nuclear energy on behalf of our efforts to combat climate change,
and to advance peace opportunity for all people.
But we go forward with no illusions. Some countries will break the rules.
That's why we need a structure in place that ensures when any nation does,
they will face consequences.
Just this morning, we were reminded again of why we need a new and more
rigorous approach to address this threat. North Korea broke the rules once
again by testing a rocket that could be used for long range missiles. This
provocation underscores the need for action – not just this afternoon at the
U.N. Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these
weapons.
Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean
something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these
weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response -- now is the
time for a strong international response, and North Korea must know that the
path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal
weapons. All nations must come together to build a stronger, global regime.
And that's why we must stand shoulder to shoulder to pressure the North
Koreans to change course.
Iran has yet to build a nuclear weapon. My administration will seek
engagement with Iran based on mutual interests and mutual respect. We
believe in dialogue. But in that dialogue we will present a clear choice. We
want Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations, politically and
economically. We will support Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy with
rigorous inspections. That's a path that the Islamic Republic can take. Or the
government can choose increased isolation, international pressure, and a
potential nuclear arms race in the region that will increase insecurity for all.
So let me be clear: Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real
threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran's neighbors and our allies. The
Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a
defense against these missiles. As long as the threat from Iran persists, we
will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.
If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security,
and the driving force for missile defense construction in Europe will be
removed.
So, finally, we must ensure that terrorists never acquire a nuclear weapon.
This is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. One terrorist
with one nuclear weapon could unleash massive destruction. Al Qaeda has
said it seeks a bomb and that it would have no problem with using it. And we
know that there is unsecured nuclear material across the globe. To protect our
people, we must act with a sense of purpose without delay.
So today I am announcing a new international effort to secure all vulnerable
nuclear material around the world within four years. We will set new
45
standards, expand our cooperation with Russia, pursue new partnerships to
lock down these sensitive materials.
We must also build on our efforts to break up black markets, detect and
intercept materials in transit, and use financial tools to disrupt this dangerous
trade. Because this threat will be lasting, we should come together to turn
efforts such as the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Global Initiative to
Combat Nuclear Terrorism into durable international institutions. And we
should start by having a Global Summit on Nuclear Security that the United
States will host within the next year.
Now, I know that there are some who will question whether we can act on
such a broad agenda. There are those who doubt whether true international
cooperation is possible, given inevitable differences among nations. And there
are those who hear talk of a world without nuclear weapons and doubt
whether it's worth setting a goal that seems impossible to achieve.
But make no mistake: We know where that road leads. When nations and
peoples allow themselves to be defined by their differences, the gulf between
them widens. When we fail to pursue peace, then it stays forever beyond our
grasp. We know the path when we choose fear over hope. To denounce or
shrug off a call for cooperation is an easy but also a cowardly thing to do.
That's how wars begin. That's where human progress ends.
There is violence and injustice in our world that must be confronted. We must
confront it not by splitting apart but by standing together as free nations, as
free people. I know that a call to arms can stir the souls of men and women
more than a call to lay them down. But that is why the voices for peace and
progress must be raised together.
Those are the voices that still echo through the streets of Prague. Those are
the ghosts of 1968. Those were the joyful sounds of the Velvet Revolution.
Those were the Czechs who helped bring down a nuclear-armed empire
without firing a shot.
Human destiny will be what we make of it. And here in Prague, let us honor
our past by reaching for a better future. Let us bridge our divisions, build upon
our hopes, accept our responsibility to leave this world more prosperous and
more peaceful than we found it. Together we can do it.”
The full text of Obama's speech can be read at:
www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Barack-
Obama-In-Prague-As-Delivered/
46
ANNEX: Submission to the conference from Mahmood Tavana,
President of UNA Iran
OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF A WMD-FREE MIDDLE EAST
Introduction
The notion of the elimination of WMD from the world is nothing new. Its origin
came about as a result of developments shaped during and following the Cold
War and its most important element was the formation of monitoring bodies,
agencies and organizations for arms control and the control of the proliferation
of WMD.
The key role played in two ways by the big powers and by western countries
in the proliferation and distribution of WMD - by selling or giving them to some
friendly and allied countries and by providing the technology for the production
of such weapons to these countries - and the threats that the aforementioned
allied countries have caused around the world are all undeniable. These
actions have had undesirable effects in creating military arms races and in
provoking threats of military confrontation and these have resulted in the
escalation of WMD in other countries.
This paper reviews the situation in two influential Middle Eastern countries;
Israel, a strategic US ally, and Turkey, a US military ally which is host to US
military bases on its soil. It can be argued that both countries provoke their
neighbours to increase their own weaponry both from a perceived necessity
for defence and from a spirit of competition. It is important to note that the
good bilateral relations between Israel and Turkey aggravate these hostile
feelings and sentiments among their neighbours.
The study of the military capabilities and capacities of Israel and Turkey
makes one recognize and understand the huge obstacle they provide to the
implementation of the notion of a Middle East free of WMD. Furthermore, the
role of western countries, the United States in particular, in supplying Israel
and Turkey with weapons has clearly influenced the establishment of an arms
race and posed threats to the neighbouring countries.
Israel and Turkey have been selected for consideration because of the unique
characteristics that each has in the Middle East. On one hand Israel has a
military and confrontational status against its Islamic neighbours and is seen
as a threat, and on the other hand, as an Islamic country, Turkey has special
and good relations with the same Islamic countries but at the same time is
seen as their rival. A glance at the military situation and capabilities of both
Israel and Turkey from various angles can help to promote understanding and
recognition of the obstacles in the way of disarmament in the Middle East and
also to see the necessity of finding solutions
Part one - Israel:
Military costs: the military defence budget in 2000 was equal to $9.5 billion, in
2001 it was $9 billion; foreign military aid in 2000 was equal to $4 billion. The
47
military budget for each Israeli is equal to twice the amount for an American,
three times the amount for an individual in France, four times the amount for
an individual in Britain.
The proportion of those in military employment in Israel is five times as much
as in the US and France, and 8 times as much in Britain. The military budget
as a fraction of the national GDP in Israel is 6 times as large as in the US and
Britain, and 8 times as large as in France.
Military exports to Israel in 1995 were equal to the military exports to Sweden
and Ukraine ($353 million). In 2002 there were 163,500 personnel active in
Israeli armed forces, and 425,000 in reserve. The compulsory military training
for officers is 4 years, three years for other rank and 21 months for women.
Capabilities:
Army: 3930 tanks; 5500 personnel carriers; 1357 artillery; 200 various rocket
launchers.
Air force: 446 active fighter jets; 250 reserve fighter jets; 133 combat
helicopters.
Navy: 6 British and German submarines; 3 warships; 10 floating rocket
launchers.
Missiles: 500 missile launchers; 1500 Ariha 1 and 2 missiles with nuclear
capabilities with the help of France (1956), the United States (1975), and
Russia (2000). Military and spy satellites: four satellites orbiting the earth.
Israel’s nuclear programme: 1949 US and French backing; agreement with
the UN in 1955 for the construction of a research reactor; 1952 establishment
of the Atomic Energy Organization associated to the Ministry of Defence,
headed by Dr. David Bergman discoverer of Uranium in the Negev Desert;
construction of the Dimona reactor in 1953 in the Negev desert with the help
of France; construction of the Nahal reactor in 1959 the Soureq Valley south
of Tel Aviv; production of approximately 200 nuclear warheads from 1968 todate.
Part Two - Turkey:
Top nation in the region in defence spending in 2001 and ranked number 8 in
the world with a budget equal to 8.100 billion dollars. Defence costs are 2.8%
of the national GDP, fourth in the region and second in NATO following the
US.
Importing 442 million dollars worth of conventional weapons, second
compared with neighbouring countries following Greece. $1.5m proposal to
possess 4 AWACS planes in 2007 which included the purchase of one and
the construction of three with the help of the United States.
Production of 240 F16 jets and restoration of 50 F4 fighter jets, and joint
48
production of 117 F16s with the help of the United States. Restoration of 170
tanks with the help of Israel. Purchase of 145 helicopters from Russia.
Production of 9 UAVs with the help of the United States and Israel. Production
of submarine and tanks with the help of Germany.
Joined NATO in 1952. NATO base in Injerlik and US military base in Izmir.
Extensive military cooperation with the United States, Israel, Britain,
Germany, France, Russia and Italy in production of military hardware.
Military personnel totalling 639,000 equalling the total number of personnel of
six neighbouring countries of Syria, Greece, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Armenia
and Georgia. (Ranked 7th in the world).
Army:
- 3500 tanks, 5400 armoured personnel carriers, 240 rocket launchers, 2700
artillery
- Army personnel numbering at 535,000 ranked fourth in the world.
Air force:
- Assortment of 430 active American fighter jets, 85 military planes, 6
AWACS planes, 456 combat helicopters, 150 UAVs.
- Has the largest number of F16 fighter jets capable of refuelling in the air
following the United States.
- Approximately 8500 air to air, air to surface, surface to air missiles.
- Air force personnel numbering at 63,000 ranked 8th in the world.
Navy:
- 12 submarines, 26 battleships, 96 patrol gunships, 50 personnel carrier
ships, 60 marine helicopters, 22 sea cruise guided missiles.
- Navy personnel numbering 51,000 ranked 8th in the world.
Conclusion:
As mentioned earlier, studying the above examples, the root cause of the
piling of WMD in these countries can be narrowed down to their military shift
towards large western powers, the United States in particular. The stimulation
of neighbouring countries towards militarization for the purpose of securing
national security is completely comprehensible. This is especially true when
one considers Israel to be the only regional country that is not only equipped
with nuclear weapons but one that completely ignores international treaties
and pacts. This is a big obstacle to the fulfilment of the notion of a WMD-free
Middle East. This in itself makes it urgent to provide proper information to the
region’s public opinion through NGOs and the institutionalization of the notion
of a WMD-free Middle East.
Mahmoud Tavana was unable to travel to Edinburgh for the Conference: this paper is what he
would have delivered at the Conference
Sources:
Iranian:
1 – Defensive Policy Journal, No. 18, 1988
2 – Middle East Quarterly, No. 14-15
3 – Yaghub Aslani, The Strategic Missiles and Rockets of the World, Army Air
49
Force Aghidati va Siasi Publications, Tehran, 1st print, 2008
4 – The Zionist Strategy in the Arab Region, Al-Arz Institute specializing in
Palestinian Studies, International Islamic Publications, 1984
5 – Saiedeh Lotfian, Israel’s Nuclear Armory, Political and Economic Studies
Journal, No. 116, 1995.
6 – Turkish Military Information, Abrare Maaser Research and Study Institute,
Tehran, 2001.
7 – Mohsen Moradian, Introduction to Turkey, Shahid Sayah Shirazi
Education Centre, Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran 2004.
8 – A Look at the Armed World, Senf Magazine, No. 298, 2004.
International:
Military Balance, 2001-2002
www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel
www.army.technology.com
www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel
The Risk Report, volume1, No.5, June 1995
The Risk Report, volume4, No.2, March 1998
SIPRI Yearbook 2000
www.lcwebx.loc.gov
www.cdi.org/issues/cbw/israel
www.politikforen.de/showthread
www.photius.com/countries/turkey
CIA world fact book, 2003
www.turkishnavy.net
www.tuaf.mil.tr
www.globalsecurity.com
www.tsk.mil.tr
.

 
www.army.technology.com

www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel

 
The Risk Report, volume1, No.5, June 1995
The Risk Report, volume4, No.2, March 1998
SIPRI Yearbook 2000
www.lcwebx.loc.gov

 
www.cdi.org/issues/cbw/israel

 
www.politikforen.de/showthread

 
www.photius.com/countries/turkey

 
CIA world fact book, 2003
www.turkishnavy.net

 
www.tuaf.mil.tr

 
www.globalsecurity.com

 
www.tsk.mil.tr

 



Nuclear Non-Proliferation working group    led by Dr Alec Gaines

UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION 
(Edinburgh Branch) 
ADVANCE NOTICE !!! 
CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE NPT 
A One Day International Conference to Prime the 2010 Review 
Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 
16th APRIL, 2009, THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT, EDINBURGH 
The Conference Conclusions will be presented to the General Assembly of WFUNA at Seoul in August, 2009) 
The Programme mixes KeyNote Lectures by distinguished experts with Round Table Discussions in which UNAs participate. 
In 2005 the Review Conference of the NPT was unable to even agree a 
final communique. WFUNA will not allow this to happen in 2010. 
Please note the date, April 16th. All UNAs welcome. Register with 
 a.f.gaines@strath.ac.uk

 Edinburgh UNA; Nuclear-NonProliferation Working Group) 


posted 28th August 2008

WORLD FEDERATION OF UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATIONS

FEDERATION MONDIALE DES ASSOCIATIONS POUR LES NATIONS UNIES

A peoples’ movement for the United Nations

STUDENTS FOR A NUCLEAR WEAPONS-FREE WORLD CONFERENCE

Geneva, 13-16 July 2008

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Dr. Hans Blix, President of the World Federation of United Nations Associations, welcomed the winning students of a global essay, video and poster competition to a conference in Geneva to work together on the question of how to free the world of nuclear weapons. A statement from H.E. Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director-General of the Palais des Nations was read out and a video message by Mr. Sergio Duarte, the UN High Representative for Disarmament, was shown.

The World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), conference co-sponsor, was represented by Mr. John Cox and Mr. Robert Berg, who warmly appreciated the thoughtfulness of the students’ ideas and encouraged them to have confidence in their ability to make a difference.

The winning students came from Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, China, Colombia, Jamaica, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia and USA. The final selection was made by a committee chaired by The Hon. Douglas Roche, on the recommendation of the NGO Committees on Disarmament in New York and Geneva.

The program for the students was intensive and enabled them to interact with disarmament experts, ambassadors, academics, civil society activists and journalists. For one session, they joined the participants in the WFUNA Human Rights Seminar for a joint discussion on the Human Right to Peace. On the last day they had a “brainstorming” session to consider how to work together in the future.

At their own initiative a group of students from Germany participated in the program of activities and filmed the proceedings. A short video was shown on Youtube and the final documentary will be made available shortly on www.disarmamenthub.org.

The Ambassadors of Belgium and Sweden hosted luncheons for the students and WFUNA staff.

Highlights of the program were as follows:

The session led by Mr. Robert Berg, member of the Board of Directors of WAAS, examined reasons for the lack of progress in nuclear disarmament and the danger of an exchange of nuclear weapons in outer space. Mr. Berg proposed that the first step towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons was to get the USA and Russia to accept the concept of minimal deterrence. One of the students suggested that both countries could establish a program to do this as part of their wider commitment to fighting terrorism, given that nuclear weapons are not the solution to terrorist threats.

Ms. Kerstin Vignard, of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), facilitated a lively dialogue on the question of how to revive meaningful negotiations on nuclear disarmament at the United Nations. Ambassadors Marius Grinius of Canada, Masood Khan of Pakistan and Hans Dahlgren of Sweden, and Chargé d’Affaires Ahlam Al-Gailani of the Republic of Iraq exchanged views with each other and with the students.

Mr. Alyn Ware, Global Coordinator of the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) emphasized the key roles played by the diplomatic community, parliamentarians, mayors and civil society in nuclear disarmament, as well as the power of youth. The discussion focused on the Nuclear Weapons Convention.

Journalist and author Mr. Phillip Knightley gave an historical account of media coverage of nuclear proliferation. Mr. Knightley and the students discussed, among other issues, the freedom of press and the role played by the internet.

Ms. Susi Snyder, Secretary-General of the Woman’s International Leagues for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), provided an overview of the international disarmament machinery, pointing out the central role of the Conference on Disarmament, as well as the activities of the First Committee of the General Assembly. Mr. Colin Archer, Secretary-General of the International Peace Bureau (IPB), focused on the importance of campaigning against nuclear weapons, as not all problems can be solved at the highest level, and provided a history of the nuclear disarmament movement. The session concluded with a conversation with the students, during which the importance of mobilizing today and the role of developing countries regarding nuclear disarmament were discussed.

Mr. Tim Caughley, Director of the Office of Disarmament Affairs, Geneva, reported on the current state of affairs in nuclear disarmament and possible ways of strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which will be reviewed in 2010. He highlighted practical questions, such as the costs of, and the timeline for, nuclear disarmament and spoke of the uselessness of having large stocks of nuclear weapons. The students raised questions of compliance, the role of civil society and its access to UN disarmament negotiations, and why more was not done by the UN to ensure that the people suffering from the effects of nuclear weapons were represented at these negotiations.

WFUNA Secretary General, Pera Wells, facilitated the joint-session with the Human Rights Seminar, entitled “In search of a rights based approach to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World”. Dr. Carlos Vilan Duran (Spanish Society for International Human Rights Law; Coordinator of the World Campaign for the Advancement of the Human Right to Peace), introduced the Luarca Declaration on the Human Right to Peace. Professor Alfred de Zayas, and Mr. Tsutomu Kono (Political Affairs Officer at the UN Office for Disarmament) joined in the discussion which concluded that establishing a nuclear weapons-free world needs to be a human right since nuclear weapons pose a fundamental threat to the right to life and all other human rights.

The students concluded their Conference with a “brainstorming” session. They decided to form a group to pursue their vision of a nuclear weapons-free world, strategize on follow-up initiatives to expand the engagement of youth in the campaign for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World. Emily Gleason (US) and Sven Sobrie (Belgium) committed themselves to the overall coordination of the group. Other students took on responsibility for tasks such as research, fundraising, constitution writing and public relations. A Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World wiki space and Facebook group have been created. The students agreed to work on local and national press releases and will collectively write a letter to high-level UN officials, Heads of government and the US presidential candidates. Emily Gleason wrote to WFUNA after the conference: “I would like to thank all of you for the amazing, life changing opportunity in Geneva” and “we are inspired by all of you, and we have decided that together, we can create change.”

posted 1st July 2008

UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION
(Edinburgh Branch)
ADVANCE NOTICE !!!
CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE NPT
A One Day International Conference to Prime the 2010 Review
Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
16th APRIL, 2009, THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT, EDINBURGH
Chair: It is hoped that the Conference will be Chaired by The Hon Doug Roche, Hon President of WFUNA, and that he will present the Conference Conclusions to the General Assembly of WFUNA at Seoul in August, 2009)
The Programme mixes KeyNote Lectures by distinguished experts with Round Table Discussions in which UNAs participate.
In 2005 the Review Conference of the NPT was unable to even agree a
final communique. WFUNA will not allow this to happen in 2010.
Please note the date, April 16th. All UNAs welcome. Full details later.
(a.f.gaines@strath.ac.uk <mailto:a.f.gaines@strath.ac.uk> Edinburgh UNA; Nuclear-NonProliferation Working Group)

posted 3rd June,2008

General Assembly
DC/3110/Rev.1**

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

Disarmament Commission
2008 Substantive Session
289th Meeting* (PM)

DISARMAMENT COMMISSION CONCLUDES SESSION, THREE-YEAR CYCLE OF DELIBERATIONS

WITHOUT AGREEMENT ON NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT/CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS ISSUES

Commission Chairman Says No One Expected ‘A Farewell To Arms’, But Even
Against Low Expectations, Commission Produced ‘A Very Meagre Outcome Indeed’

(Issued on 25 April, delayed for technical reasons.)

The Disarmament Commission concluded its three-week session today by adopting its draft report, as well as those of two subsidiary bodies, working respectively on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and on confidence-building measures in the field of conventional weapons. The session also marked the conclusion of the Commission’s latest three year-cycle which ran from 2006 to 2008.

Prior to adopting the three reports, the Commission heard Jean-Francis Regis Zinsou (Benin), Chairman of working group I, which considered the agenda item on “Recommendations for achieving the objective of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons”, as he introduced that body’s report.

According to the report, the working group held informal consultations on 18 March, and 12 formal meetings from 9 to 24 April, during which it had before it a working paper submitted by its Chairman. On the basis of extensive discussions and informal consultations, the Chairman presented a revised working paper containing elements that, in his view, could serve as a basis to reach a consensus on recommendations for achieving the objective of nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. Following analysis of the subsequent discussions, a final revised working paper was submitted by the Chairman, but the working group was unable to achieve a consensus on it.

The report of working group II, on “Practical confidence-building measures in the field of conventional weapons”, was introduced by that body’s Chairman, Carlos Luis Dantas C. Perez ( Brazil). According to the report, the working group held 10 meetings between 9 and 22 April, with the Chairman’s conference room paper as the basis for discussion. In the course of its deliberations, a revised version of the Chairman’s paper was submitted taking into account proposals and changes made by delegations. An annex was subsequently attached to the paper. The working group then considered that latest version of the revised paper, but also failed to achieve consensus.

Introducing the Commission’s draft report, Rapporteur Monica Bolanos Perez ( Guatemala) said that it was a factual description of the Commission’s work and proceedings during the session. The substantive part comprised the reports of the two working groups and was a reflection of the compromises and agreements reached by delegations through delicate negotiations, which had been carried out in the spirit of constructive cooperation. The two reports, incomplete as they were, accurately reflected three years of progress and failure.

Following the Commission’s adoption of the three reports, Chairman Piet de Klerk ( Netherlands) said “nobody expected the UN Disarmament Commission to bring about a farewell to arms, but… even set against the relatively low expectations we had going into this, we came out with a very meagre outcome indeed”.

He said it was a shame that the hard work did not come to fruition, and added that, despite everyone’s commitment, three weeks was “not enough for the Commission to bring results”. Indeed, “three years were not enough. Nearly a decade was not enough, a decade of disarray”. As the lean years passed, he noted, both expectations and attendance had dropped. At the same time, worryingly, the urgency of the issues had only increased.

There was a stark contrast between the state of the world and the cooperation of the United Nations Member States in the Commission, he said. Therefore, the credibility question was “inescapable, and in time, each and every one of us should be able to answer it”. He promised to be at the disposal of the members for any suggestions they might have regarding the agenda of the Commissions next sessions, and the future. “This question is still open,” he said, adding, “we should not again let two years pass before we can agree on an agenda. Hopefully we can agree, in consultations to be held, on a new agenda before the introduction of a resolution in the First Committee in the fall”.

He said that, however, not all was negative; “we are not leaving the room empty-handed. After all, this is a deliberative organ and we did deliberate”. He pointed to valuable exchanges of views and expressions of opinions on some of the most crucial issues of the day, perhaps even on topics of the highest importance. Members had worked seriously towards consensus, but that consensus had eluded them. Even without consensual conclusions, however, that process counted for something. “Maybe that in itself is a confidence-building measure,” he said.

The Commission also heard concluding remarks by the representatives of Slovenia (on behalf of the European Union), Indonesia (on behalf of the non-aligned movement), India, Pakistan, Norway, Nigeria, China, Iran, Ireland, Cuba, Israel, Russian federation and Syria (on behalf of the Arab States). The representative of Iran took the floor a second time to clarify his position in regard to the statement made by the representative of Israel.

The Disarmament Commission will meet again on a date and time to be announced.

* *** *
__________

* The 288th Meeting was not covered.
** Reissued to reflect Chairman’s statement as delivered.
For information media • not an official record

Posted 5th April,2008

A debate of about 20 minutes, organised by the Newsnight Scotland, among some prominent persons, Lord Hannay, Sam Daws, John Mayer, Chris Ballance, Prof Wyn Bower and David Johnston (from the US Embassy).  January,2007

 http://youtube.com/watch?v=4HD0T8jv_ZI&feature=related

Posted 17/2/2008

Ministry of Defence
30th January, 2008

Thank you for your letter of 14 January enclosing further correspondence from Alec Gaines of the United Nations Association, Edinburgh, about various matters relating to disarmament.

I am disappointed that Mr Gaines feels that the Government shows little sense of urgency in pursuing our goal of a safer world in which there is no requirement for nuclear weapons. We take the issue of nuclear disarmament very seriously. We have made it clear on many occasions that we remain fully committed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear weapons (NPT), which we regard as the cornerstone of the international non-proliferation and disarmament regime. Indeed the then Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett speaking to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washingron on 25 June 2007 noted that the debate on disarmament and non-proliferation has become “more immediate and more urgent”.

The UK has already made substantial reductions in its holdings of nuclear weapons. We are the only recognised nuclear weapons State to have reduced its nuclear deterrent capacity to a single system which is based on the Trident D5 missile. In line with the announcement in the December 2006 white paper: “The Future of the UK’s Nuclear Deterrent” (Cm 6994), the UK’s stockpile of operationally available warheads has been reduced to fewer than 160. This means that since the end of the Cold War the UK has reduced the explosive power of its nuclear deterrent capability by over 75%. These are significant initiatives and commitment towards the goal of nuclear disarmament.

Mr. Gaines’ references to Russian bombers invading our airspace suggests a misunderstanding of the actual position and of my previous letter. As I said then, there has been an increase in the number of Russian military aircraft approaching the NATO policed international airspace for which the UK has responsibility. We have reacted appropriately. On 17 August last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was resuming, on a permanent basis, regular flights by its strategic aviation bombers, which had been effectively dormant since 1992, and commented, “we hope our partners will treat this with understanding”. The resumption of these flights has been reported in the UK media as a return to the Cold War, This is not the case. All countries have the right to maintain or upgrade and exercise their defence capabilities. The training flights are being conducted in international airspace, which the Russians are perfectly entitled to do, just as UK military aircraft sometimes conduct flights in international airspace adjacent to other countries.

We launch our Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) aircraft, under current procedures, primarily for identification purposes. The only means available to assess whether the Russian aircraft are carrying weapons is a visual inspection by the QRA intercepting crews. As the Russian aircraft have internal bomb bays, intercepting aircrews have only been able to confirm that no external weapons are carried. The Bear aircraft is equipped with a defensive tail mounted canon, but it is not known if this is loaded with ammunition. We do not assess that these flights constitute a military threat to the UK.

With regard to Mr. Gaines’ comment on Russian missiles, and the detection of possible missile launches, the RAF Flyingdales early warning radar regularly receives alerts of missile launches and contributes, where appropriate, to an immediate assessment of the likelihood that these launches pose a threat to the United Kingdom and its deployed forces. Similarly, any satellite early warning data would be routed through RAF Menwith Hill to the United States missile defence system should such a launch be detected.

Mr Gaines also asks about the UK’s co-operation with certain countries to improve mutual nuclear defence. The only co-operation of this kind that the UK has is with NATO. Although the UK’s nuclear weapons are assigned to NATO, please reassure Mr Gaines that the weapons remain under UK national control at all times and only the Prime Minister can authorise their use. Separate to the multilateral |NATO co-operation, the UK also co-operates bilaterally with the US on certain nuclear technical and procurement issues under the terms of the 1958 UK-US Mutual Defence Agreement.

While the UK does not have mutual nuclear defence agreements with nations outside of NATO, we do hold regular discussions with Russia, China, India, Israel and Pakistan, and of course the wider UN membership, on the full range of nuclear disarmament issues through our participation in, amongst others, the NPT, the Conference on Disarmament, the UN Disarmament Committee and the UN First Committee. In the case of Russia, the UK works bilaterally, and through the NATO Russia Council, with the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation over areas of mutual interest to counter common security challenges and risks that our nations face. Our aim is to strengthen international peace and security.

Finally, the UK maintains a ‘Continuous At Sea Deterrence’ posture, which means that one vanguard class submarine with Trident missiles is always on deterrent patrol. We have no intention of inviting other nations to carry out spot checks of our nuclear deterrent.

I hope this explains the position.
Bob Ainsworth
Minister of State for the Armed Forces

posted January 5th, 2008

Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
Security Policy Group.
19 November, 2007

Dear Mr Gaines,
Thank you very much for your letter of 1 October to Jim Murphy, the Minister of State, in which you ask about the Government’s policy on multilateral disarmament. You also express your concerns about the Government’s agreement to the use of RAF Menwith Hill for relaying satellite data to the US Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system. As an official within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Security Policy Department, I have been asked to reply.

On your first point, I can assure you that our overarching policy remains working towards a safer world in which there is no requirement for nuclear weapons. The UK has taken a large number of unilateral and multilateral steps in full support of our disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As announced in our recent White Paper “The future of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Detererent” we are cutting our stockpile of operationally available warheads by 20 percent, to fewer than 160. This will result in a total reduction in the explosive power of UK nuclear weapons by 75 percent since the end of the Cold War.

We continue to push for negotiations on a Fissile Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) within the Conference on Disarmament. We continue to call on all states that have not yet done so to follow our example and sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). We have alongside our EU partners, publicly stressed the need for further progress in nuclear disarmament. And we continue to engage with both the Us and Russia, calling on them to reduce the nuclear arsenals to the current bilateral arms reduction treaties. We have also made clear our willingness to discuss with other nuclear weapons states confidence building measures on nuclear disarmament.

In a speech given on 25 June to the Carnegie International Endowment for International Peace, the former Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, announced that the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston would be taking forward detailed work on key stages in the verification of the reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons. We are also supporting an in-depth study by the Independent International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) to help determine the requirements for the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons. In particular, we are working with IISS on holding a workshop to focus on some of the crucial technical questions in this area.

On the Government’s decision to allow the use of RAF Menwith Hill for relaying satellite data to the US BMD system, parliament has the opportunity regulalrly to question Defence Ministers on missile defence, both in writing and orally. The key principles underpinning the use of bases in the UK to support the US BMD system have been debated in detail.

The original decision to allow its use as a relay station for satellite data was taken in 1997, by the previous Government. At that time, the purpose of the relay station was, and remains, to provide the UK and the US with warning of missile attack on our countries. What we agreed recently was that the US can use this same satellite data in their missile defence system. The Secretary of State, Des Browne, informed the House of this change.

I should also make clear that the US BMD system is not a nuclear system. The US plan to deploy kinetic energy interceptors into Europe to defend against a ballistic missile attack from the Middle East. These interceptors are designed for defensive purposes only and are in no sense nuclear weapons. They contain no warhead nuclear or otherwise.

The UK makes a contribution to the US missile defence system through our operation of the radar at RAF Flyingdales, the data relay station at RAF Menwith Hill and our well-established technical co-operation programmes. Discussions on additional support are at an early stage, and no decisions have been taken on whether or not any further ballistic missile elements might be based in the UK, or where they might be sited. US negotiations on the siting of missile defence assets in Europe are on a bilateral basis with the host nations. The UK is therefore not involved in these negotiations although the US does discuss plans for missile defence with NATO.

You express your concerns about Russia’s resumption of its Russian strategic overflights. Russia has consistently opposed US Missile Defence plans. The US has made clear that this system is in no way aimed at Russia. The US system is designed only to deal with a limited number of missiles that may be launched by states of concern. It is not a nuclear system and has no offensive capability. Those countries ready to participate in missile defence are responding to the emerging threat of a ballistic missile attack. The US is engaged in bilateral discussions with Russia on this issue. NATO also engages Russia on missile defence through the NATO-Russia Council (NRC).

It is noteworthy that Russia has tempered its statements about targeting Europe in response to US plans, and is now offering to co-operate with the US. We want to work constructively with them to see what missile defence can do for all European nations.

The UK Government does not accept the contention that limited deployment of ballistic missile interceptors in Europe creates any sort of security risk to Europe, or threaten strategic stability within the region in any way. The legitimate security concern is the developing ballisitc missile threat that Europe faces from the ballistic missile programmes in other regions. Missile defence is a response to, not the cause of ,the problem.

I hope this helps to answer your concerns.

Louise McCollin (Security Policy Group)


US. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Disarmament and Non-Nuclear Stability in Tomorrow’s World
Dr. Christopher A. Ford, US Special Representative for Nuclear Non-Proliferation
(Nagasaki, August 31st, 2007)

Thank you for the chance to address you today. It is a sobering task to address the issue of nuclear disarmament in one of the two places on Earth to have felt the terrible power of nuclear energy used in war, but I am grateful for the chance to offer some thoughts on the subject. As I emphasised in a United Nations Conference in Sapporo earlier this week, it is very important to devote serious attention to realistic and practical thinking about how we can create the conditions that would allow the achievement of total nuclear disarmament. Supporters of disarmament must work to ensure that they can provide persuasive answers to hard-nosed skeptics who contend that disarmament is a naïve dream – or worse, a dangerous delusion. I find it encouraging that there seems to be increasing interest in undertaking serious study of the very challenging questions that arise when one considers how to make total nuclear disarmament a realistic and plausible policy option in the real world.

The United States has, on multiple occasions, offered its thoughts on the kind of international security it would be necessary to create for total nuclear disarmament to become practical and realistic. If you are not familiar with this work, I would encourage you to become so: our papers and comments are available on the “NPT Review Cycle” website of the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the US State Department. We do not intend these positions to be definitive statements for all time on such issues, but we do hope that they will serve as the beginning of an ongoing dialogue, as the international community works to think through some of these questions.

Today, I would like to offer some thoughts on one of the thorniest challenges that advocates of disarmament face: ensuring that a future world that has taken what Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev once briefly considered as the so-called “zero option” remains reliably at zero over time. This is a formidable challenge, for logic suggests that as the number of nuclear weapons decreases, the “marginal utility” of a nuclear weapon as an instrument of military power increases. At the extreme, which is precisely disarmament’s hope to create, the strategic utility of even one or two nuclear weapons would be huge. As we sit here today in Nagasaki, of all places , one needs little reminder that a country that possesses the only nuclear weapons in the world sits in a position of extraordinary power. This is a sobering fact with which advocates of disarmament must wrestle, because it means that the very achievement of total nuclear disarmament could greatly increase the incentives for nuclear proliferation. It is therefore vital for any zero option regime to be able to provide rock-solid assurances that it will be able to deter – and, if necessary respond to – attempts to achieve “breakout” from a disarmament regime by suddenly beginning to produce nuclear weapons and thereby seize strategic advantage.

This is the challenge I would like to discuss today., for I think that too little serious attention has been paid to this problem. Most discussions that I have heard about a zero-option world seek to answer this question – when, indeed, they do at all – simply by declaring that the UN Security Council needs to be reformed and empowered to enable it to take swift and effective action against a country that attempts to subvert the disarmament regime. An effective Security Council, I believe, must indeed be part of the solution if the zero-option is to be taken seriously, but I am afraid that without a good deal more, this will not be sufficient to address the task at hand.

Specifically, solutions that posit a rapid and reliable Security Council as a sort of deux ex machina that will step in, where needed, to solve disarmament’s ”breakout” problems smack too much of a medicinal cure that presumes the disease to already be in remission. A world in which the permanent and rotating members of the Council will agree swiftly on action to deter and respond to any “breakout” attempt – and in which all governments will be ready and willing quickly to translate Security Council requirements and exhortations into effective concrete steps toward these ends – already would be one in which such dramatic steps would be less necessary than they are in the untidy world of today. To put it brutally, if the international community were harmonious enough to be capable of acting together so rapidly, reliably, and effectively in a multilateral forum such as the Security Council, there would probably be less need for the Council to act in the first place. In a world which has not been fully purged of ambiguity, complexity and contestation, a credible “zero-option” regime must be able to provide some assurances against breakout that do not presuppose both a swift and resolute international consensus against any suspected violator and an unwavering willingness to bear the burdens of decisive response.

More is probably needed. Friends of disarmament must be able to articulate a broader vision of deterrence within the context of a zero-option world, a vision which does not depend exclusively upon international consensus to ride to the rescue when problems arise. In our discussions of these matters, the US Government has offered some tentative thoughts on this subject, which I would like briefly to outline for you.

We have spoken repeatedly of the importance of developing non-nuclear means of strategic deterrence. This is today an important focus of US strategic policy. Since our 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, we have been working diligently to develop and improve means of accomplishing strategic deterrent goals that no longer – as in years past- rely exclusively upon nuclear weaponry. Today, we are developing a “New Triad” of nuclear and non-nuclear strike systems, defensive measures, and improved industrial infrastructure, intelligence, and command-and-control architectures that is reducing our reliance upon the traditional Cold War “Triad” of land-based missiles, bombers, and missile carrying submarines. The crucial element for the purposes of our discussions today ,of course, is that of non-nuclear deterrent means: we seek better ways to accomplish , without nuclear weapons, strategic deterrent missions that previously could only be achieved with such weapons.

This thrust is of obvious importance to the process of achieving nuclear disarmament, but it also has implications for stability in a non-nuclear weapons world. Such improved capabilities, after all, not only speak to how to make nuclear weapons seem less necessary, but also can help provide an answer to the challenge of how to convince a would-be violator that attempting “breakout” from a zero-option regime would be very much against its interests. Post-nuclear deterrent capabilities, in other words, could make nuclear weapons seem both less necessary for today’s possessors and less attractive for those who might consider them tomorrow.

We also have spoken of the link between disarmament stability and the development and improvement of ballistic missile defences and other means of defeating WMD delivery. Such capabilities can, I believe, powerfully contribute to stability in a zero-option world in two ways. First, by making it harder to deliver to a target any nuclear weapon that is developed in violation of a zero-weapons regime, defences would reduce the anticipated strategic utility of such weapons, making “breakout” less attractive and therefore possibly less likely. Even If defences could at some point be surmounted, the existence of relatively robust defensive networks around the world could ,at the very least, buy time in which the international community could rally to develop or implement other means of responding to the threat. As we have seen with the world’s painfully slow responses to the ongoing threats posed by the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programme, the international community does not always act decisively and swiftly. It could be valuable indeed to have a little more time before a violator could fully realise strategic benefits from zero-option “breakout”.

Finally, I would like to say a word about another factor that we have noted: the possibility that the potential availability of countervailing reconstitution would need to be part of deterring “breakout” from a zero-weapons regime. Already this possibility has been incorporated explicitly into US nuclear weapons planning as a way to provide a “hedge” against a technical surprise or geopolitical risk. As directed by President Bush, and later codified in the Moscow Treaty, we are steadily reducing our numbers of “operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons” toward the band of target numbers set by that agreement for the year 2012. At the same time, we are continuing with – and indeed accelerating – our programme for dismantling nuclear weapons. We are not yet, however, dismantling every single warhead that we remove from “operationally destroyed” status. For now, at least, we feel it necessary to keep some warheads in existence, but in a nondeployed status, in case some unanticipated unfavorable change should occur in the strategic environment or a technical problem arise with any of our delivery systems or warheads that would render that portion of our deterrent ineffective.

We are working, however, to make our “hedge” of non-deployed “weapons-in-being” less necessary – and thus to permit further reductions in our total stockpile of warheads. This is a slow and expensive process, but the “Complex 2030” program of the US. National Nuclear Security Administration is designed to shrink and modernize our nuclear weapons infrastructure in such a way that we would feel more secure in the future without maintaining today’s numbers of non-deployed weapons. In short, we anticipate that a smaller but more responsive infrastructure will enable us to manage the geopolitical and technical risks associated with a smaller nuclear force, thus making that smaller force feasible. The possibility of countervailing reconstitution, in other words, is already promoting disarmament because it is helping us move towards a posture in which we can reduce the number of nuclear warheads in existence as we feel less need to maintain weapons-in-being as a “hedge” against unforeseen changes in the strategic threat environment or technical surprise.

These issues will, of course, require much more study, but I believe we should not ignore the possibility that this principle might be applied in order to help current nuclear weapons states reach “zero” and to deter “breakout” in a zero-option world. In other words, every current nuclear weapons state’s strategic “hedge” ultimately could move entirely into productive capacity. This could make nuclear disarmament seem less potentially threatening to them, thereby helping to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. It also could help sustain a zero-option regime by confronting a would-be violator with the unpleasant prospect that if it broke the rules by trying to develop nuclear weapons, it would quickly be confronted by countervailing arsenals.

This is not a principle that could safely be generalised, of course, any more than I think the universal availability of fissile-material production capabilities in today’s world could safely be contemplated alongside meaningful nonproliferation assurances. Strategies that manage risk through a responsive production base rather than weapons-in-being, however, might offer friends of disarmament a way to respond to the challenge of keeping a zero-option regime alive in the face of the proliferation incentives that such a regime would itself help to increase. It is, at any rate, food for thought.

Having offered these suggestions, let me wrap up by sharing a more personal thought. I have with me today a very kind gift that I received last April from the Mayor of the City of Hiroshima. It is a small tapestry depicting the Atomic Bomb Dome, a World Heritage Site that now forms the centrepiece of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and lies near the cenotaph of the victims of the bombings of August1945. I have carefully kept this gift, and I brought it with me on this trip, because it helps keep me focused upon two important points. Most obviously, it is a sobering reminder from the past for disarmament advocates, nonproliferation experts, and deterrence strategists alike.

But I also keep this tapestry because the costly closing act of the long and ugly saga of the Second World War reminds me of how rooted disarmament issues necessarily are in the broader context of international tension and conflict – and of how important it is that we address disarmament issues with the thoughtfulness that they deserve in all the complexities of this context. This piece of cloth thus has been valuable to me not only as a warning but also as a source of inspiration and hope that our collective wisdom will prove equal to the task.

I have tried today to sketch out some ways in which it might be possible to help answer the questions that must be addressed if we are serious about trying to move toward a disarmed world. I do not expect that everyone will necessarily agree with these ideas. But I hope there is no disagreement on the importance of addressing as closely and realistically as we can the challenges that would be entailed in achieving and sustaining the elimination of nuclear weapons in our decidedly complicated world.

There could hardly be a more appropriate place to rededicate ourselves to this goal than here in Nagasaki.

Thank you.

Posted 20/12/07

The following letter is a new important, informative and courteous letter that the Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth, the Minister for the Armed Services wrote to John Thurso MP (and which John Thurso kindly copied to us).

Notice that the letter, perhaps because Bob Ainsworth is being courteous, is lacking in urgency; it shows the UK Government making little real progress towards multilateral disarmament this year. The letter reminds us that Russia and the US have undertaken to reduce their numbers of nuclear missiles to (only!!) 2200 by 2012 but it gives no evidence that this has started to happen. Indeed, the November 'Scientific American' (available on most bookstalls) gives details of both Russia and the US designing new generations of missiles.

Perhaps the most encouraging part of Bob Ainsworth's letter is at the end when we are told that Russia may be starting to collaborate with us on defence against nuclear attack. Collaboration should be encouraged, we are on the same side !

The Branch will be thanking John Thurso and sending him our comments. The Branch has recently written to the Ambassadors of each of the nuclear powers asking straightforwadly what they have done/are doing towards nuclear disarmament.


John Thurso MP MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
28TH November,2007
Dear John
Thank you for your letter of 9th October enclosing correspondence from the United Nations Association, Edinburgh about various matters related to the nuclear deterrent, non-proliferation and ballistic missile defence.

As you will be aware, on 14March the House of Commons debated the issue of the future of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, and following a lengthy and full debate, voted to support the Government’s proposals for maintaining the capability by procuring a new class of submarines to replace the Vanguard class and to participate in a programme to extend the life of the Trident II D5 missile. In supporting the Government’s motion, the House also endorsed the decision to take further steps towards meeting the UK’s disarmament responsibilities under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

The primary responsibility of any government is to ensure the safety and security of its citizens. For 50 years our independent nuclear deterrent has provided the ultimate assurance of our national security. In terms of their destructive power, nuclear weapons pose a uniquely terrible threat and consequently have a capability to deter acts of aggression that is of a completely different scale to any other form of deterrence. Nuclear weapons remain a necessary element of the capability the UK needs to deter threats from others possessing nuclear weapons. Should there be a fundamental change for the better in the strategic environment and, in particular, significant further progress on non-proliferation and disarmament, it would obviously be right for future governments to look at this again.

As far as Mr Gaines point about the nuclear posture of the US and Russia is concerned, this is, of course, a matter for those governments. However, the UK welcomes the series of bilateral agreements which have resulted in substantial reductions in their major nuclear arsenals since the end of the Cold War. These have produced significant results; by 2012 the United States nuclear stockpile will have been reduced to around one quarter of what it was in 1990. Under the terms of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty Russia is making parallel cuts. We have, alongside our EU partners, continued to encourage Russia and the US to make further bilateral progress in reducing their nuclear arsenals.

Our overall position on nuclear disarmament has not changed with the publishing of the 2006 White Paper. We are committed to working towards a safer world in which there is no requirement for nuclear weapons and continue to play a full role in international efforts to strengthen arms control and prevent the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

We have made clear that when it will be useful to include in any negotiations the one percent of the world’s nuclear weapons that belong to the UK, we will willingly do so. However, to reach that point would require much more disarmament diplomacy. It would require a much more secure and predictable global political context. That context does not exist today. The continuing risk from the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the certainty that a number of other countries will retain substantial nuclear arsenals, mean that our minimum nuclear deterrent capability is likely to remain a necessary element of our security.

We are very keen to get the Conference on Disarmament (CD) back to substantive work and we will be working hard to this end as part of next year’s CD Presidency Platform. We hope that all CD Member States will accept the very broad mandate that has been proposed and agree to open negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty without preconditions, towards a treaty without delay. This remains the multilateral disarmament priority for the UK. We believe that capping the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons is the next logical step towards nuclear disarmament. We have been very encouraged by the progress made in the CD this year but unfortunately a very small minority of states continue to block progress. The UK is working hard to urge those few remaining states to join the consensus.

The UK ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1998 and has maintained a moratorium on conducting nuclear explosions since 1991. We are committed to the CTBT and to its entry into force as early as possible. We have urged all states that have not yet done so to sign and ratify the Treaty unconditionally and without delay, in particular the ten remaining Annex 2 countries. This would be an important step towards universalisation of the CTBT and would send a positive signal for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation as a whole. We welcome the fact that, while several countries have not yet felt able to ratify the Treaty, they are nonetheless maintaining moratoria on nuclear weapons test explosions and other nuclear explosions (apart from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).

The original decision to allow the US to use RAF Menwith Hill as a relay station for satellite data was taken in 1997. The purpose of the relay station is to provide the US and the UK with warning of missile attack. What the Government agreed recently was that the US can use this same satellite data in its missile defence system; a system that did not exist at the time of the original agreement.

Russia has been, and will continue to be, informed of US plans for extending their missile defence system into Europe. Moreover, Russia is already working closely with NATO to examine the potential for interoperability of Russian and NATO theatre missile defence systems. It is noteworthy that Russia is now offering to cooperate with the US in this area, and that the US is offering a greater role than was previously envisaged for Russia in the creation of a ballistic missile defence system that protects not only the US, but Russia and Europe. The UK continues to work constructively with all interested parties on missile defence; it would be irresponsible of the Government not to explore with our allies the implications that the missile defence system might offer for the security of the UK.

In recent weeks we have seen an increase in the number of Russian military aircraft approaching the NATO-policed international airspace area for which the UK has responsibility. On each occasion we have launched Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) fighters, including the first operational use of the RAF Typhoon, to monitor and escort the Russian aircraft as they have transited through this airspace. It should also be noted that the Russians have regularly but never continuously , flown aircraft in the vicinity of United Kingdom airspace for many years, and that this activity is not a direct response to the US plans for ballistic missile defence. The challenge facing Russia, and the UK, is to use our capabilities to improve international security and stability. Continued engagement, through our defence cooperation programme, helps us to build confidence and to understand these actions in the context of Russian domestic politics.

I hope this is helpful.

Yours,
The Rt. Hon. Bob Ainsworth ,MP. ,Minister for the Armed Forces.