Global Security Newswire

A new organization plans to conduct its first meeting in Paris tomorrow to kick off an initiative to free the world of nuclear weapons within 25 years, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 4).

Global Zero aims to see the international community establish safeguards and audits for disarmament, reduce the U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles to about one-fifth their current size in the near term and gradually draw down all atomic arsenals.

"The aim is to get to zero," said Richard Burt, President George H.W. Bush's top strategic weapons negotiator, adding that even Iran could back efforts to eliminate all nuclear weapons (see related GSN story, today). "If there is growing support by nuclear powers and public opinion worldwide, I think it becomes harder for any government, including Iran, to cross that barrier," he said.

"You got to think of this in terms of faith," Burt added.

An estimated 20,000 nuclear weapons are in the hands of the world's nuclear weapons powers: China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and, most likely, Israel.

An organization release states: "In recent months, the threat of proliferation and nuclear terrorism has led to a growing chorus of world leaders calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons."

Global Zero representatives are expected to meet this week with U.S. and Russian officials, possibly including U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. The group plans to organize a global meeting in January 2010.

Arms Control Association head Daryl Kimball said that Global Zero's strategy of encouraging talks between world leaders is different from past approaches.

"Most past strategies ... have focused on a step-by-step approach toward zero, a process that has gone far too slowly," he said.

The group's U.S. supporters include former President Jimmy Carter, former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci and former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, AP reported. The organization also has the backing of former Soviet Union head Mikhail Gorbachev, former Pakistani Foreign Minister Shaharyar Khan, retired Indian air force chief Marshal Shashindra Pal Tyagi and former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Dec. 6).