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Briefing on the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference Page 1 of 12 Home » Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security » From the Under Secretary » 2010 » Briefing on the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference Briefing on the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference Ellen Tauscher Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Susan E. Rice U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations , U.S. Mission to the United Nations Ambassador Susan F. Burk Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation Washington, DC April 30, 2010 MR. CROWLEY: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Department of State. We are thrilled to have a couple of our guest stars back in the briefing room for the first time in some time. Ambassador Susan Rice, our intrepid force of nature at the UN – (laughter); and Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher; and as you can see, Assistant Secretary Susan Burk in New York. Obviously, we ’re here to pre-brief the Review Conference for the Nonproliferation Treaty next week. We’ll – and this is really about the NPT. It’s about strengthening a core pillar of our nonproliferation strategy. It’s about what all countries in the world do. It’s not about any one country. And you’ll hear from our speakers momentarily. I would just say we’ll stay behind afterwards if there are other subjects that you want to talk to us about. You did hear upstairs the Secretary a short time ago in the press avail with her counterpart from Kuwait indicate that subject to agreement by the Arab League Follow-on Committee tomorrow night, that we will begin proximity talks in the region on Middle East peace next week. But again, we’ll start with Susan Rice and then Ellen Tauscher and then Susan Burk, and we’ll alternate questions between Washington and New York. Ambassador, thank you for being here. http://www.state.gov/t/us/141271.htm 11/8/2010 Briefing on the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference Page 2 of 12 AMBASSADOR RICE: Thanks a lot. Good afternoon, everybody. Last spring in Prague, President Obama stood before the world and set a new direction for the nuclear weapons policy of the United States – to take us out of the Cold War postures and instead meet today’s security threats. He declared America’s commitment to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” The President also spoke of the work that would be required to realize that goal, and the security benefits we would gain as a result. In the year since Prague, President Obama has backed up his words with concrete progress: A United Nations Security Council Summit last September on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament that gained the Council’s unanimous endorsement of many elements of his Prague agenda; a new START Treaty that will bring our stockpile of deployed strategic warheads to its lowest point since the 1950s; a Nuclear Posture Review that reduces the role of nuclear weapons in our security strategy, strengthens our negative security assurance for NPT parties in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations, and commits that we will not develop new nuclear warheads or engage in nuclear testing. The President also directed, as part of the NPR, a review of our arms control objectives to achieve future reductions in nuclear weapons. And he reaffirmed our commitment to work toward Senate ratification of the CTBT. On nonproliferation, we have also moved forward. Most recently, President Obama convened a national Security Summit, the largest gathering of world leaders convened by a U.S. president since 1945, to agree on steps we can take collectively to prevent nuclear terrorism and secure all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. The U.S. has worked with other states to help them adopt and reinforce effective laws prohibiting proliferation consistent with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540. In addition, the U.S. has helped lay the foundation for an international agreement to end the production of fissile material. In addition, we have strengthened our commitment to the rights of parties that are in compliance with their NPT obligations to access nuclear energy and technology for peaceful purposes. The United States has enhanced civil nuclear infrastructure cooperation, and in the past two years alone we have led technical cooperation delegations to a dozen countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. Next week in New York, the United States delegation, led by Secretary Clinton, will join nearly all of the 188 other nations that are party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And they will gather. It is an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the importance of the treaty as a cornerstone of our national, as well as our collective, security. It is an opportunity to undertake a constructive, balanced review of where things stand, and to assess what steps we can take together to strengthen the treaty. As the President said last spring in Prague, the “basic bargain of the treaty is sound: Countries with nuclear weapons will move towards disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them, and all countries can access peaceful nuclear energy.” We expect that that the conference will demonstrate the critical role the NPT plays in the international nonproliferation framework and in reinforcing regional and global security and stability. Our goal for the Review Conference is to strengthen the treaty across all three of its pillars: disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. But we don’t just come to this conference with the resolute commitment of President Obama to make progress across all these pillars. We come with months of hard work already underway and already bearing fruit. http://www.state.gov/t/us/141271.htm 11/8/2010 Briefing on the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference Page 3 of 12 We will focus on ways to improve compliance with the nonproliferation requirements of the treaty and to strengthen support for the IAEA. The noncompliance of any state with its NPT obligations undermines the nonproliferation regime as The Office of Electronic Information, Bureau of Public Affairs, manages this site as a portal for information from a whole. the U.S. State We will emphasize the fundamental importance of IAEA safeguards for assuring parties that their neighbors and others External links to other Internet sites should not be are complying with their NPT obligations. construed as policies contained Without these assurances, insecurity and instability will grow both regionally and globally. NPT violations are corrosive – if one country in a region violates the NPT, other countries are forced to reevaluate their security needs and military decisions. In the end, a single violator can potentially undercut longstanding efforts to achieve universal adherence to the NPT. We also strongly believe that the IAEA must have the resources and the authorities it needs to carry out its mission. At the same time, we will work with others on preventing parties to the NPT from misusing the treaty by seeking key nuclear assistance under the treaty and then withdrawing from it when they wish to violate its terms. Also at the conference, we hope to fortify the “peaceful uses” pillar, by expanding cooperation to help developing countries build their capacities. As President Obama noted at the Nuclear Security Summit, “For nations that uphold their responsibilities, peaceful nuclear energy can unlock new advances in medicine, in agriculture and economic development.” So, as you can see, we have a full agenda for this Review Conference next month. It’s been built on months and years of hard work on all of these issues. There will undoubtedly be challenges, but the United States delegation will focus on areas where we can make concrete, meaningful progress. We’ll seek common ground, and we will be a constructive, flexible, and consensus-building voice during the Review Conference to make the most of this opportunity – and to continue building on that progress in the months and years ahead. Thank you, and now Under Secretary Tauscher. UNDER SECRETARY TAUSCHER: Thank you very much. It’s an honor for me to appear here today with Ambassador Rice and Ambassador Burk, two great colleagues that I really enjoy working with. And good afternoon to all of you. Ambassador Rice has given a very comprehensive view of the Obama Administration’s goals for the Nonproliferation Treaty Review. Ambassador Burk has worked for nearly a year to accomplish many of the goals. I just want to make a couple of points because I think Ambassador Rice did do a very good job of giving a comprehensive briefing of what we’re hoping to do. A couple of simple points. April has been quite a month for the Obama Administration and the delivery of the President’s Prague speech agenda. The Nuclear Posture Review, the new START treaty being signed, and the Nuclear Security Summit, and obviously, at the end of the month, here we go into the Nonproliferation Treaty Review. I just want to make a couple of points about the NPT Review Conference. First is that it’s not a silver bullet. It is not an end to itself. It is not going to, itself, curb proliferation. Our yardstick is that we want to get our points of view out – United States very strong central pillar of the President’s agenda on nonproliferation, the peaceful uses and on disarmament. We believe that the United States and our other countries very much want to move to a consensus. But at the end, if there is http://www.state.gov/t/us/141271.htm 11/8/2010 Briefing on the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference Page 4 of 12 not consensus because of the activities of some outliers, we believe that we still will be able to have great agreement on those three central pillars and moving forward to strengthening the NPT.
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