Australia to Push Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty

Australia plans this year to press nations to complete a pact to ban new production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, The Australian reported today (see GSN, Feb. 23).

“We hope that during the course of this year, we can contribute to further measures to stop the spread of nuclear weapons by getting the [United Nations] to adopt the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty,” Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday after visiting Hiroshima, Japan.

Downer acknowledged that some nations, including the United States, have said that verification procedures for such a treaty could easily be evaded, but said Canberra must support the treaty because of its role as a leader in nuclear nonproliferation (Peter Alford, The Australian, March 24).

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