U.S., Russia Unite
Against Nuclear Weapons Spread
State's
Joseph says terrorists with nuclear weapons "greatest threat of
our time"
By David McKeeby
Washington File Staff Writer
18 July 2006
Washington – The United States and
Russia are joining forces to lead a new global coalition to detect and
defeat the most serious national security threat facing the world
today: nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists, says a top U.S.
official.
In a July 18 speech sponsored by
National Defense University, Robert Joseph, under secretary of state
for arms control and international security, provided an overview of
the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism – a new effort
unveiled by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a
bilateral meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, prior to the July 15-17
G8 summit. (See related
article.)
In the post-9/11 world, Joseph said,
terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida have declared their intent to
acquire nuclear weapons; state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and
North Korea, have continued to pursue covert weapons programs in
violation of international nonproliferation regimes; and nonstate
entities, such as A.Q. Kahn, have worked to sell weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) technologies on the international black market.
The convergence of these factors, he
said, along with the technological advances of a globalizing world
“makes nuclear terrorism both the most serious international
security challenge of our time, and the most urgent.”
“To be wrong once is to have lost
one of our cities,” he said. “We do not have a second
chance; we must take steps now to avert that dark future.”
In recent years, diplomatic efforts
have converged on the threat from numerous directions, Joseph said.
Among them:
• Adoption of consensus agreements
within the United Nations, such as the Nuclear Terrorism Convention
and Security Council resolutions 1540 and 1373, which require
members’ to take concrete action to prevent terrorist acquisition of
WMD;
• Programs that build security
cooperation among militaries and law enforcement agencies to increase
interception of illicit shipments of dangerous materials;
• Intelligence-gathering
initiatives that monitor terrorist financial transactions and
transmissions through the Internet; and
• Installation of detection
equipment throughout global shipping networks.
But, Joseph said, “The Global
Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism is the first initiative of its
kind, one that takes a comprehensive approach to dealing with all
elements of the challenge.”
By bringing together these previous
partnerships and then building on their success, the initiative aims
to “to establish a growing network of partner nations that are
committed to taking effective measures to build a layered
defense-in-depth that can continuously adapt to the changing nature of
the threat.”
With the United Nation’s
International Atomic Energy Agency acting as an observer, the
initiative calls on participants to:
• Improve accounting, controls,
and protection of nuclear materials and facilities;
• Detect and suppress illicit
activities involving weapons materials;
• Respond to the consequences of
acts of nuclear terrorism;
• Promote cooperation in the
development of new technologies to combat nuclear terrorism;
• Ensure that law enforcement
groups take all possible measures to deny safe haven to terrorists
seeking to acquire or use nuclear materials; and
• Strengthen participants’
national legal frameworks so that, if apprehended, terrorists and
other facilitators of nuclear terrorism can be prosecuted effectively
and punished.
“In bringing to bear all
instruments of national power against this threat,” Joseph said,
“the initiative will bring diplomats together with first responders,
forensic and technical experts, law enforcement officers, the
military, and others in the public and private sectors who shape the
present and future risks of nuclear terrorism.”
The United States and Russia have
invited several potential partner nations as well as the IAEA to
attend an initial meeting later this year to further develop the
initiative and to sign a statement of principles.
“The Global Initiative will not
only reinforce our national efforts, but it signals to all
participating nations the importance of developing comprehensive
approaches to combat the threat of WMD terrorism,” Joseph said.
The text
of Joseph’s speech, as well as a fact
sheet with additional information on the Global Initiative to
Combat Nuclear Terrorism are available from the State Department Web
site.
Bush and Putin’s joint
statement, the transcript
of their press availability, and a related fact
sheet are available on the White House Web site.
For more information on U.S.
policies, see Arms
Control and Non-Proliferation.
(The Washington File is a product of
the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of
State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
