Forum urges U.S., Russia to cut nukes to 1,000
'99/7/26
TOKYO, July 25 Kyodo - A Japan-initiated international forum of
experts on nuclear disarmament Sunday
adopted
a proposal urging the United States
and Russia
to reduce the number of their strategic
nuclear
weapons to 1,000 warheads each.
Twenty-one participants of the Tokyo
Forum
adopted the proposal at the end of
its fourth
and final three-day session held in
Tokyo.The
proposal first calls on the U.S. and
Russia
to implement the 1993 Strategic Arms
Reduction
Treaty (START) II, in which the two
major
nuclear powers agreed to reduce to
3,500
each the approximately 7,000 or so
strategic
nuclear warheads each of them currently
deploys
by December 2007.
START II has not yet entered into force
because
the Russian Duma, or lower house, has
not
yet approved the treaty. The U.S. Senate
overwhelmingly ratified START II in
January
1996.
Secondly, the forum urges both countries
to further reduce their nuclear arsenals
to 1,000 warheads each sometime in
the future.
The cuts would prompt the three other
declared
nuclear weapons states -- France, China
and
Britain -- to join the nuclear disarmament
process, according to the proposal.
The three countries' strategic nuclear
weapons
total a little over 1,000 warheads.
If the
nuclear disarmament process went smoothly,
the world could be ''only one step
short''
of achieving total elimination of nuclear
weapons, the forum said in the proposal.
The forum also called on China to improve
the transparency of its nuclear policies,
urged India and Pakistan, which conducted
nuclear tests last year, to sign the
Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, and sought the cooperation
of the international community to prevent
North Korea from producing and exporting
missiles.
The proposal also pointed out that
the divided
policies of the permanent members of
the
U.N. Security Council have intensified
the
dangers posed by nuclear weapons, and
urged
the council to adopt a resolution confirming
that the proliferation of weapons of
mass
destruction causes terror.
The forum also sought the creation
of a third-party
body to assess whether nuclear weapons
states
and nonnuclear powers which signed
the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are
acting
in accordance with the aims of the
NPT to
strengthen the world's nuclear nonproliferation
system.
Yasushi Akashi, the forum's co-chairman
and
former U.N. undersecretary general,
and others
will submit the proposal to Prime Minister
Keizo Obuchi on Monday, requesting
the Japanese
government to pressure other countries
to
promote the abolition of nuclear weapons.
The forum, organized by the Japan Institute
for International Affairs and the Hiroshima
Peace Institute, was set up at the
urging
of former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto
and Obuchi, then foreign minister,
following
nuclear tests by India and Pakistan
in May
1998.
It comprises 25 experts from the two
South
Asian nations, Japan, Britain, China,
France,
Russia, the U.S. and 10 other nations.
The members include Robert Gallucci, dean
of Georgetown University's School of Foreign
Service, Pierre Lellouche of the International
Institute for Strategic Studies in London,
and Oxford University Professor Robert O'Neill.
Picture Caption: Last meeting of The Tokyo forum for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament consisting of the disarmament experts from overseas (9:40 AM, Takanawa Prince Hotel, Minato-ku, Tokyo)