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| | | published Wednesday, May 26, 2010 | 1425 Views :: 0 Comments | |  |
UK GOV'T REVEALS SIZE OF ITS NUCLEAR STOCKPILE
Associated Press -- May 26, 2010
By Danica Kirka and Edith M. Lederer
London -- Britain offered its first accounting of its nuclear arsenal
Wednesday, revealing that it has a stockpile of 225 warheads in a move
that offers transparency to non-nuclear states in hopes of winning
stricter global controls on the spread of atomic weapons.
The announcement, made without fanfare in the House of Commons, follows
the Obama administration's disclosure that the United States has
stockpiled 5,113 nuclear warheads and "several thousand" more retired
warheads awaiting the junk pile — the first description of the secretive
arsenal born in the Cold War and now shrinking rapidly.
The U.S. made the announcement at the May 3 opening of a five-year
review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the
cornerstone of global disarmament efforts, where Washington and its
allies are seeking stronger measures to prevent the spread of nuclear
arms. Britain made its announcement as the monthlong conference nears an
end on Friday, with intense debate under way on a final document.
"We believe that the time is now right to be more open about the weapons
we hold," Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons. "We
judge that this will assist in building a climate of trust between
nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states and contribute, therefore, to
future efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons worldwide."
Britain had earlier revealed that it possessed 160 operational warheads,
but Hague's comments that the country's "overall stockpile of nuclear
warheads will not exceed 225 warheads" was the first time the maximum
size of the total stockpile was revealed. The Foreign Office later said
the 225 figure was the number of warheads the country now holds.
Countries that don't possess nuclear weapons have long demanded more
openness from the nuclear-weapon states — the U.S., Britain, France,
Russia and China — about the size and nature of their arsenals as an
essential step toward nuclear disarmament, which is a key plank in the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt told a briefing for U.N.
reporters that Hague sent him to New York as the treaty review
conference nears an end to emphasize the importance of the announcement
in the House of Commons.
"We are very conscious that everything relating to nonproliferation
depends on confidence, the confidence between those who are parties to
the treaty, those who are nuclear weapon states and those who are not,"
he said.
The new British government is also conscious that, over the last decade,
the treaty had come under pressure with no outcome from the 2005 review
conference, Burt said.
"We wanted to make an immediate and positive contribution to that
process," Burt said.
For that reason, Burt said that Hague announced "two particularly strong
confidence-building measures" — the maximum number of warheads in
Britain's stockpile and a review of the government's policy on the use
of weapons.
On the nuclear arsenal, Burt said, "until this moment that number has
always been kept secret."
"The foreign secretary has today revealed that number openly as part of
our determination to be as open and transparent as a nuclear
weapon-holding state in this process," he said.
On the policy review, he said, Britain's position has always been that
"the use of nuclear weapons would only be in the most extreme
circumstances of self defense following attack in certain particular
circumstances."
Hague has now offered "a review and a discussion" of that policy, Burt said.
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