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10 June 2004

Rhianna Tyson, Project Associate

This week at the CD, only the United States took the floor during the formal plenary on Thursday.

All statements to the CD are available at: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches04/index.html

Ambassador Sanders used the opportunity to hail the recently adopted G-8 Action Plan on Nonproliferation, agreed upon at the ongoing G-8 meeting in Sea Island, Georgia. The Action Plan, while falling short of the United States' hopes, endorses and strengthens several existing programs, as well as creates several new initiatives.

The plan includes expansion of the Proliferation Security Initiative, the one-year anniversary of which was commemorated in the statement made by Polish Ambassador Stanislaw Przygodzki in his statement to the Conference last week. To Ambassador Sanders, the PSI "demonstrates in a concrete way how dozens of countries can agree to work together toward our common security."

The G-8 Action Plan also calls for the expansion of the Global Partnership, the G-8 Plan on Nonproliferation that was announced at its 2002 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, as well as strengthening the IAEA. The G-8 leaders also promoted "universal adherence to the Additional Protocol and making it a condition of supply of nuclear technology." In addition, the Action Plan calls for a one-year moratorium on "new transfers of uranium enrichment and reprocessing technology to additional states," a moratorium that the United States hopes to make permanent.

Lastly, said Ambassador Sanders, the G-8 leaders "also urged all states to implement recently passed Security Council resolution 1540," which requires all states to criminalize proliferation and report to the Security Council on its progress in five months.

After the brief formal plenary, the Conference resumed its informal discussion on negative security assurances before beginning discussion on the next item on its informal plenary agenda: new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons, including radiological weapons. 
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