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2009-09-25 08:04:33
by Jo Biddle Jo Biddle Thu Sep 24, 8:16 am ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) US President Barack Obama will on Thursday chair an
unprecedented summit at the UN Security Council to rally world support for
nuclear non-proliferation and advance nuclear disarmament.
The talks come as Iran's suspect energy program has once again been thrust into
the spotlight, with world powers warning more sanctions could follow if Tehran
refuses to comply with UN demands to rein in its nuclear ambitions.
The summit will be the first time the 15-member council will be chaired by an
American president, with Obama having set combating nuclear proliferation as a
priority of his new administration.
US officials have stressed the aim of the summit is to reinvigorate the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which will be the subject of a key review
conference next year.
In his maiden address to the UN General Assembly, Obama on Wednesday renewed a
pledge he made in Prague earlier this year to work toward his goal of "a world
without nuclear weapons."
"This institution was founded at the dawn of the atomic age, in part because
man's capacity to kill had to be contained," he told the assembly, as Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad listened intently.
"For decades, we averted disaster, even under the shadow of a super-power
stand-off. But today, the threat of proliferation is growing in scope and
complexity," he warned, in a speech was warmly welcomed by some 120 heads of
state and government.
"If we fail to act, we will invite nuclear arms races in every region, and the
prospect of wars and acts of terror on a scale that we can hardly imagine."
White House officials said there were three main elements to Obama's strategy
-- non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and encouraging the peaceful uses of
nuclear energy.
US National Security Council advisor Gary Samore said they expected the
Security Council would "pass a resolution that would endorse the key parts of
the president's overall strategy, including some fairly technical matters which
the Security Council has never spoken on before."
Part of the plan appears to be setting out a strategy to deal with states which
leave or violate the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Council members are expected to adopt a US-drafted resolution calling on states
that have signed the NPT "to comply fully with all their obligations."
White House officials said they did not want to get into the detail of the
resolution to be adopted Thursday at a meeting which takes place alongside the
annual meeting of the General Assembly.
But Samore acknowledged: "The Security Council has a unique and distinctive
role in the international regime, because it's the only body that has the
authority and the responsibility to address issues of non-compliance."
The draft text makes no direct reference to Iran and North Korea but points to
Security Council resolutions enjoining Tehran to halt sensitive nuclear fuel
work and Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
US deputy permanent representative to the UN, Alex Wolff said: "There is a
deliberate effort here to focus on this issue comprehensively, and not use this
meeting to focus on any specific country or problem.
"The resolution reflects that as well. It is, in effect, a framework for how we
deal with these issues."
Obama also said he was confident the United States -- the only country to
unleash a nuclear bomb in wartime -- and Russia would meet an end-of-year
deadline to agree on a replacement to the START nuclear arms reduction treaty.
"Both of us are confident that we can meet our self-imposed deadline" to reach
an agreement to reduce the number of nuclear missiles and launchers "by the end
of the year," Obama said after talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The United States and Russia are seeking to agree on a successor to the
landmark 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) before it expires on
December 5.
The US resolution to be debated on Thursday also urges all nations to "refrain
from conducting a nuclear test explosion" and to sign and ratify the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in order to "bring the treaty into
force."
A separate high-level UN conference is scheduled for Friday to facilitate the
entry into force of the CTBT.
Drawn up in 1996, the CTBT has been signed by 181 countries and ratified by
149. But it needs to be ratified by nine others, including China and the United
States, before coming into force.