Tomorrow and on Thursday this week, the European Union has an opportunity to influence the preparations for a conference on a Middle East WMD-free zone.
Programmes
Israeli and Iranian officials to attend European WMD meeting
Writing about the EU conference on a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East, Julian Borger in his Global Security Blog for The Guardian refers to BASIC’s Washington Program Director Anne Penketh’s article on the subject.
Multilateralizing Nuclear Arms Control: an agenda for the P5 meeting in Paris
As the world’s established nuclear weapon states, the only nuclear weapon state signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the permanent members of the UN Security Council, the United States, Russia, China, France and the UK (the P5) are central to global nuclear politics
An agenda for the P5 meeting in Paris: BASIC report
The world’s officially recognised nuclear powers, meeting in Paris today, should expand upon their existing commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and agree a disarmament roadmap, according to a new report from the British American Security Information Council.
Multilateralizing Nuclear Disarmament
Top level officials from the five recognised NPT nuclear weapon states – United States, Russia, China, UK and France – meet on Thursday and Friday in Paris this week. This is the second dedicated meeting they have had to exchange information and to discuss as a group measures to facilitate transparency, reductions in numbers, and other disarmament measures (the first was in London, September 2009). The challenges to achieving agreement, both real and presumed, are sufficiently huge that expectations are low for any substantial breakthrough.
Iran: The Green Movement and the Nuclear Issue
“International attempts to punish Iran for pursuing nuclear fuel production simply strengthen the legitimacy of the government’s stance to defy those attempts, as well as the very legitimacy of the government itself.” Paul Ingram, BASIC’s executive director said.
Global Zero
This month is witnessing a flurry of conferences on nuclear disarmament. Global Zero has a ‘summit’ conference in London on Wednesday and Thursday this week, to educate and energize in support of abolishing nuclear weapons. It coincides with the UK launch of ‘Countdown to Zero’
Roundtable on NATO’s Nuclear Posture and Burden Sharing Arrangements: an Italian Perspective
BASIC held a roundtable in Rome on June 15, 2011 in cooperation with the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). The roundtable explored Italian perspectives on the future of NATO\’s nuclear posture and burden sharing. It also looked at Italy\’s position on the current debate about tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) in Europe.
The main points raised at the roundtable were as follows: