Panel recommends cutting No. of nukes to 2,000 or under by 2025+

TOKYO, Oct. 23 Kyodo -
An international panel on nuclear nonproliferation has agreed to recommend to
world leaders to reduce the number of nuclear arms from more than 20,000 at
present to 2,000 or less by 2025, Yoriko Kawaguchi, a co-chair of the panel,
said Friday.

The target spells a setback compared with the initial figure, as the
International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, which met
in Hiroshima earlier this week, initially aimed to set the number of nuclear
weapons in the world that year at 1,000 or less.
The figure has been raised after some nuclear powers expressed opposition to
reducing their weapons at the same ratio as Russia and the United States,
according to sources close to the commission.
Kawaguchi, a former Japanese foreign minister who chairs the commission jointly
with former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, disclosed the details of
the agreement reached in Hiroshima after reporting them to Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama.
The commission agreed on action plans for nuclear disarmament after a three-day
meeting through Tuesday in the world's first city to have been attacked with
nuclear weapons, but did not disclose any numerical target contained at that
time.
In the action plans aimed at cutting 90 percent or more of nuclear arsenals in
the world, the commission urges Russia and the United States to reduce their
nuclear weapons to 500 each by that year, according to Kawaguchi, from the
current estimate of some 13,000 and 9,400, respectively.
As for other countries possessing nuclear weapons, the commission urges them
not to increase their nuclear arsenals while recommending they reduce the
weapons at the same time.
The commission is scheduled to release a final report on its recommendations in
January in hope of building an international consensus in the run-up to a
nuclear nonproliferation treaty review conference in May.
The action plans contain a three-phase action agenda for the short, medium and
long terms covering the periods to 2012, 2025 and beyond 2025 to reduce nuclear
weapons worldwide to zero, while designating the first two phases as the
''minimization'' phase and the last as the ''elimination'' phase.
The commission agreed to urge every nuclear-armed state to adopt a no-first-use
doctrine, under which nuclear powers would pledge not to use nuclear weapons
unless they or their allies come under nuclear attack, by the designated
''minimization point'' of 2025.
For its short-term action agenda, members of the commission also agreed to
stipulate in its final report that all nuclear-armed states would declare by
2012 that the sole purpose of retaining their nuclear arsenals is to deter
others from using such weapons against them or their allies.
The commission is an independent global initiative established under the
leadership of Australia and Japan in 2008.
==Kyodo
2009-10-23 23:01:05