Declaration of the Supervisory Board of the International Luxembourg Forum.
The members of the Supervisory Board of the International Luxembourg Forum accept and approve the report of the President of the International Luxembourg Forum.
The Vienna Workshop and the Washington Conference final documents have contributed to the intellectual background of the official negotiations and agreements among states. Of particular importance were discussions and findings of the Luxembourg Forum related to the process of the negotiations and ratification of the new START Treaty, as well as on the NPT Review Conference in New York which successfully adopted the Final Document.
The members of the Supervisory Board endorse publishing of all the Luxembourg’s Forum documents in a special volume.
The Supervisory Board expresses its unanimous and strong support to the article of four Russian “wise men” (E.Primakov, I.Ivanov, E.Velikhov, M.Moiseev) “From Nuclear Deterrence to Common Security” published in the Russian Izvestiya newspaper on October 15, 2010.
The members of the Supervisory Board consider the following subjects as the main issues of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament in 2011 and the principal directions of the Luxembourg Forum next year activities:
- The New START Treaty is equal, stabilizing and entails tangible reductions and limitations strategic offensive forces of the two parties.
Ratification of the New START Treaty by the US and Russian legislatures is absolutely essential for further advance of the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation processes, US-Russian relations and international security at large. We strongly recommend to the US Senate to ratify the New START Treaty without delay.
The Luxembourg Forum should concentrate its efforts at promoting the New START ratification and implementation.
- The US, Russia and European NATO states should promptly start consultations on the development of cooperative ballistic missile defense systems. This also relates to the project of the Joint Data Exchange Center (JDEC) on missile and space launches.
Also the combined BMD exercises of Russia, USA and NATO must be resumed with its potential enlargement beyond the theater of war operations. The new incentive for such actions was provided by the Lisbon NATO-Russia summit.
The Luxembourg Forum should provide in 2011 the proper framework for expert discussions and publications for promoting such consultations.
- The US and Russia should initiate consultations on the reduction and limitation of sub-strategic, or theater nuclear weapons (TNW). The goal of this process should be reaching agreements on mutual and verifiable removal of all TNW to national territories and their placement in centralized storage facilities, i.e. their removal from a state of operational deployment.
- In 2011 the United States-Russia and other NPT nuclear weapon states should concentrate their efforts on joint elaboration of a system of priorities for the enhancement of non-proliferation regime. This work should be done in preparation to the next NPT PrepCom and the Luxembourg Forum should render active expert assistance to this endeavor.
- We consider the resumption of talks with Iran to have any sense only if the subject is curtailment of the elements of its nuclear program which were declared unacceptable by the reports of the IAEA and the resolutions of the UN Security Council. This condition should be made clear to Iran in advance and can not be a subject of negotiations.
The Luxembourg Forum should elaborate “red lines” of abidance by the spirit and letter of the NPT the crossing of which would entail effective actions of the UN Security Council in line with articles 41 and 42 of the UN Charter. These “red lines” should apply to any NPT member state.
- The military provocations of North Korea in parallel with its intensive program of development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles will remain of major concern in 2011. This calls for the imposition and consistent enforcement of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council in line with Article 41 of the United Nations Charter.
The Luxembourg Forum should continue active monitoring of the situation in North-East Asia. The Forum should conduct analyses of the prospects of US-Russia-China-Japan BMD cooperation for the protection of the Asia-Pacific region from missile WMD threats.
- Due to the persistent danger of weaponisation of outer space the Forum should pay special attention to elaboration of measures to counter this threat.
- Activity of the Luxembourg Forum beside nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament should be applied to enhancement of CWC and BTWC.