Abandon Nuclear Weapons, British PM Urges

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose nation is one of a handful of official nuclear weapons states, on Monday urged Russia and the United States to continue cutting their arsenals with an end goal of achieving worldwide nuclear disarmament, the Press Trust of India reported (see GSN, June 25, 2007).

Brown also urged the international community to bring the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty into force (see GSN, Jan. 18) and to negotiate a fissile material cutoff treaty, which could prohibit the production of nuclear material for weapons and ban enrichment and reprocessing activities outside of international safeguards regimes (see GSN, June 8, 2007).

“Facing serious challenges from Iran and North Korea, we must send a powerful signal to all members of the international community that the race for more and bigger stockpiles of nuclear destruction is over,” Brown said during an address in India.

“Let me say today, Britain is prepared to use our expertise to help determine the requirements for the verifiable elimination of nuclear warheads,” he said.

“I pledge that in the run-up to the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in 2010 we will be at the forefront of the international campaign to accelerate disarmament amongst possessor states … and to ultimately achieve a world that is free from nuclear weapons,” Brown said (see GSN, May 27, 2005).

Praful Bidwai, an Indian activist and nuclear weapons opponent, praised the prime minister’s message even though Brown did not say whether the United Kingdom was willing to dismantle its own nuclear arsenal.

“We certainly welcome Gordon Brown’s statement.  He puts the issue of nuclear disarmament on the global agenda.  Although if he wants to score a major diplomatic and political point he should set an example and destroy Britain’s nuclear weapons.  That would have given Brown an unprecedented leverage to call the shots in the disarmament debate,” Bidwai said (Seema Guha, Press Trust of India/Daily News & Analysis, Jan. 23).

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