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Nuclear Powers Agree on Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
The five nuclear powers Saturday agreed to eliminate their nuclear arsenals in part of a new disarmament agenda agreed to by 187 countries.
The agreement was reached by the signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) after all-night consultations and tense pressure on the United States and Iraq not to derail the conference, the first of its kind since 1995.
The agreement was announced at the end of the month-long Review Conference of NPT, which opened here on April 24.
The president of the conference, Abdallah Baali of Algeria, said, "Today is a great day for the cause of nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disbarment."
A final document among those with nuclear arms and the 182 nations without them was approved hours after the meeting was nearly derailed by the United States over its dispute with Iraq.
The conference agreed to further reductions of tactical nuclear weapons, increase transparency by the nuclear powers on reporting information about their nuclear arsenals and reduce the number of warheads on hair-trigger alert.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a statement issued Saturday by his spokesman, hailed the announcement as "a historic consensus on several issues crucial to the security of all the peoples of the United Nations."
A Chinese delegate told the conference Saturday that "This review conference as a whole is successful."
"State parties conducted a comprehensive and profound review on the implementation of the Treaty, and on the decisions and the Middle East resolutions adopted in 1995," when the NPT was extended indefinitely.
"In spite of the different views held by State parties, agreement has been achieved on many issues; consensus has been reached on the need to preserve the effectiveness and universality of the Treaty," the Chinese delegate said. "It reflects the common desire of the States parties to safeguard the Treaty and to promote the three principal objectives of the Treaty."
However, "first and for most, the final document has failed to fully reflect the current international situation, nor does it call for the removal of fundamental obstacles to nuclear disarmament," said the Chinese delegate.
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