Swiss Want Nukes Off Hair-Trigger Alert

Switzerland and a handful of other nations are making a renewed push to persuade nuclear powers to take their weapons off hair-trigger alert, Swissinfo reported yesterday (see GSN, July 16).

China, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sweden and Switzerland last year failed to persuade the U.N. General Assembly to pass a resolution demanding that nuclear-tipped missiles be removed from the status that would allow them to be launched in a matter of minutes.  The resolution received support from 139 nations but failed in the face of opposition from permanent Security Council members France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The six nations are again pressing the matter as one step toward nuclear disarmament, according to the Jurg Streuli, the Swiss envoy to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

“We have a vision of a world free of nuclear arms,” he said.  “At the height of the Cold War there were about 60,000 atomic warheads.  Today there are roughly 27,000.”

"If nuclear countries were to power down their weapon systems, this would be a step in the right direction," Streuli added.

Both candidates for the U.S. presidency, Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), have indicated they would consider the matter, Streuli said.

He argued that a number of other measures are needed, including entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (see GSN, Sept. 25), enactment of a treaty banning production of fissile material for weapons purposes (see GSN, Sept. 30), and strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (see GSN, July 1).

The 2010 NPT review conference “will be a very difficult conference,” Streuli said.  “To stop proliferation we need a clear signal from atomic states as well as concrete steps toward disarmament.”

The Conference on Disarmament has had no success in pushing the issue over the last decade, according to Swissinfo (Rita Emch, Swissinfo, Oct. 23).

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