Tokyo: An international panel on nuclear
non-proliferation and disarmament has compiled a draft report
calling for reducing the number of nuclear warheads in the
world to less than 1,000 by 2025 from the present more than
20,000, panel sources said.
The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation
and Disarmament, which was established at the initiative of
Australia and Japan, worked out the draft ahead of its final
meeting scheduled to be held Sunday through Tuesday in
Hiroshima, the world's first atom-bombed city.
The draft report titled "Eliminating Nuclear Threats," a
copy of which was obtained by Kyodo News, calls for achieving,
as a medium-term action agenda item to 2025, "a world with no
more than 1,000 nuclear warheads."
However, some representatives to the panel have expressed
doubts if the target can be incorporated in the final report,
the sources said yesterday.
The draft report tones down some key points from the
previous draft which was discussed in the previous session in
Moscow in June. It extends the target year for US President
Barack Obama to work out a new nuclear doctrine to 2012 from
the spring of 2010 in the previous draft.
The previous draft urged Obama to work out such a
doctrine before the review conference of parties to the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty which is scheduled to be held
next May.
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, October 17, 2009, 14:17