The United States and the European Union on Tuesday called on all nuclear-armed holdout states to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty "as non-nuclear weapon states," India's Pioneer newspaper reported (see GSN, Oct. 22).
Following a summit in Washington, U.S. and EU leaders issued a statement addressing nonproliferation, climate change and other global issues.
"We are committed to preserve and strengthen the authority and integrity of the NPT," according to the declaration. The NPT, based on its three mutually reinforcing pillars of nonproliferation, disarmament, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, represents a unique and irreplaceable framework for maintaining and strengthening international peace, security, and stability. ... We call upon all states that are not parties to the NPT to accede as non-nuclear-weapon states to achieve universality."
India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan are all known or suspected of operating nuclear-weapon programs outside of the treaty, a document that New Delhi calls "discriminatory."
Washington and Brussels also called for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to be quickly brought into force and for negotiations to begin for a fissile material cutoff treaty in January at the Conference on Disarmament (see GSN, Sept. 8). Until those actions occur, states should maintain their suspension of nuclear testing and avoid production of material for nuclear weapons or similar devices, according to the summit statement.
The leaders also expressed their support for U.S.-Russian efforts to produce a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (see GSN, Nov. 3), for a planned 2010 nuclear security summit, and for the International Atomic Energy Agency's efforts to maintain nuclear safeguards and security.
"We endorse the Additional Protocol and comprehensive safeguards as the standard for NPT verification," said the U.S.-EU summit. "We will work to ensure that the IAEA has the resources and authority to carry out its essential mandate" (S. Rajagopalan, Pioneer, Nov. 5).