The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, said yesterday that post-Cold War nuclear initiatives by the nuclear weapons states "are not predicated on the elimination of nuclear weapons."
He told a seminar in Dublin, organised by Pax Christi International, that in the case of the START process between the US and Russia, for instance, "it is foreseen, in a best case scenario, that a combined strategic nuclear arsenal of 7,000 operational nuclear weapons, plus a large stock of tactical nuclear warheads, will remain deployed in the year 2003." It was enough "to wipe out humanity several times over," he said.
Such complacency "in the altered (post-Cold War) circumstances of our times" had, he said, led to the declaration he had launched with other national representatives on June 9th.
Co-sponsored by the New Agenda Coalition of New Zealand, Sweden, South Africa, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Slovenia and Ireland, it called on the five nuclear weapons states and the three nuclear-capable states to commit themselves to the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Mr Andrews acknowledged that without the co-operation of the nuclear weapons states there could be no progress in nuclear disarmament. "But equally," he said, "the nuclear weapon states must respond to the firm demands of the international community. Our group of governments represents the advance guard of that demand."
He also said, however, that the nuclear weapons states "have a right to assurances that, once they have relinquished their nuclear weapons, such weapons will not be held by others".
The maintenance of a nuclear-free world would require an enduring legal framework, linked to the Charter of the United Nations, in the form of a convention or other legal instruments on nuclear weapons, he said.
Mr Andrews paid tribute to the work of non-governmental agencies in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. There was a need, he said, to raise public awareness of the dangers inherent in the present situation.
