David Miliband

Foreign Secretary

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Monday 01 June, 2009

Cutting off fissile material

After 12 years in which the Conference on Disarmament has been paralysed over the fissile material cut - off treaty there was a breakthrough last week. The treaty would ban the production of nuclear material for nuclear weapons. Now the negotiations start in earnest. The prominence of North Korea's nuclear and missile tests shows the urgency.

Together with the nuclear test ban treaty - the CTBT - a fissile material cut - off treaty would be one of the key steps on the path to our long term goal of a nuclear weapons free world. Our Ambassador for Multilateral Arms Control & Disarmament in Geneva, John Duncan, blogged  and updated his Twitter site on this recently. 

Posted at 18:16 01 June 2009 by David Miliband  |  Comments[3]

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It was a truly historic moment to witness on Friday in the public gallery of Geneva's least productive negotiating room, just before we presented a new report on the process to ban cluster munitions, which one year ago had its own breakthrough after decades of public concern. The UK should remember the lessons of that process and lead from the front this time.

Posted by Thomas Nash on June 01, 2009 at 06:54 PM BST #

Mr. Secretary, I believe the proliferation of these materials to be one of the truly emergent threats of our times. Thank you for keeping this in the forefront of U.K. foreign policy. The Nuclear Threat Initiative http://www.nti.org does a great job of keeping this issue on the radar in the U.S. Best Regards, Jim Miller

Posted by James P. Miller on June 07, 2009 at 03:19 AM BST #

Mr. Secretary, I apologize for making two remarks to the same item. I reread your remarks and wanted to add the following comment; I just do not think zero nuclear weapons is actually possible. I do not believe nuclear weapon states will give up the security these weapons provide and hope others keep their promises. It's that whole "genie back in the bottle" thing. I realize you are unable to hold AQ or other asymetric threats "at risk" with nuclear weapons as you can nation states. While I believe asymetric threats will be more prevalent in the future, I do not think conflict between nation states has perished from the earth. Until that time, these weapons have proved very useful in preventing great powers from making the first move. It may not be politically correct; but it is true. Best Regards, Jim Miller

Posted by James P. Miller on June 07, 2009 at 04:01 AM BST #

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