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Non-nuclear states want nuclear powers to move on disarmament |
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April 25, 2000 UNITED NATIONS, APR 24 (AP) - Russia's ratification last week of two anti-nuclear agreements has lifted some of the pessimism surrounding a major conference to review efforts at worldwide nuclear disarmament.
But countries without nuclear arms are still expected to press the five major nuclear powers to make an unequivocal commitment to disarmament at the four-week Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty conference which begins Monday.
Thirty years after the treaty was signed, nations that disavowed nuclear weapons are frustrated that the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China aren't doing enough to carry out the treaty's goal of a world free of nuclear arms.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will be among the first speakers Monday and is likely to defend Washington's record before the 187 countries that have committed themselves to the treaty.
"Some countries have the quite unrealistic notion that disarmament is something that happens overnight," said State Department spokesman James P. Rubin. "The fact is that the United States has led the way among the nuclear powers in trying to reverse the nuclear arms race."
The treaty, which went into force in 1970, represented a bargain between the nuclear haves and have-nots.
In return for a pledge from non-nuclear states not to acquire nuclear weapons, the treaty committed nuclear-weapon states to pursue nuclear disarmament.
In 1995, when the treaty's 25-year term was set to expire, the United States led the successful campaign to extend the treaty indefinitely, promising "systematic and progressive efforts" toward disarmament and a global ban on nuclear tests.
But there is widespread feeling that the efforts have not gone far enough and that the spread of weapons has in fact increased. India and Pakistan now call themselves nuclear states after conducting rival nuclear tests in May 1998.
In addition, the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament, the main disarmament forum, has deadlocked on a new disarmament agenda. There has been no progress on a treaty to cut off production of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium. Ten years after the Cold War, thousands of U.S. and Russian warheads remain on "hair-trigger" alert.
Global disarmament negotiations on a host of issues were virtually gridlocked until the Russian Duma ratified the long-delayed START II treaty to cut nuclear arsenals on April 14. On Friday, the Duma ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. Senate refused to ratify last year.
Russia hopes the two votes will generate support for its drive to stop the United States from building a missile defense system - an issue that is likely to feature prominently in the conference.
Critics say the U.S. system would trigger a new arms race. The recent Russian action "helps to relieve some of the gloom surrounding some of this conference, and will help to answer some of the criticism with regard to nuclear disarmament," said U.N. Undersecretary-General for Disarmament Jayantha Dhanapala.
Some of that criticism is expected to come from a group of moderate countries called the New Agenda Coalition, which has successfully lobbied the U.N. General Assembly to approve a resolution on steps toward a world free of nuclear weapons for the past two years.
The coalition, which consists of South Africa, Brazil, Ireland, Egypt, New Zealand, Mexico and Sweden, has demanded that nuclear-weapon states "make an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and to engage without delay in an accelerated process of negotiations, thus achieving nuclear disarmament."
Nearly 350 grassroots organizations and 42 lawmakers from Britain, Belgium, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and the European Parliament have written to all NPT signatories making similar demands.
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