Final declaration of the Supervisory Board of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe

PROVIDING FOR NEW STEPS IN NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT AND NON-PROLIFERATION

DECLARATION

of the Supervisory Board of the International Luxembourg Forum

on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe

December 4, 2014, Prague

The members of the Supervisory Board of the International Luxembourg Forum approve the activity of the Forum for the year 2014 and endorse further elaboration of the ways to overcome the current deadlock in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

We are alarmed by the preсedent of massive violence and destruction in Ukraine – one of the largest states in Europe in its very center – and involvement of Russia and European Union in political and economic confrontation. Russia and NATO have started an arms build-up and are conducting military activities reminding of the times of the Cold War. We strongly believe that this crisis could be avoided and should be resolved exclusively by political means.

The members of the Supervisory Board express their disappointment and concern about the deteriorating state of relations between Russia and the West, deepening deadlock in nuclear disarmament and failure to resolve in due time the Iranian nuclear problem in the recent negotiations. This puts in danger the prospects for successful 2015 NPT Review Conference.

We recommend the following mid-term steps:

· The New START and INF Treaty should be preserved and strictly implemented by the United States and the Russian Federation. The two parties should initiate without further delay the talks on a new treaty with the goal of achieving substantial reductions of strategic nuclear arms, limitation of strategic conventional weapons, and substantial reduction of sub-strategic nuclear arms. Both sides should elaborate confidence-building measures to ensure that the deployment of defensive systems does not undermine strategic stability.

· In parallel, it is high time that the two parties proceed with substantive dialogue in order to reach an agreement on the concept of strategic stability in the new environment: broad missile defense systems deployment, introduction of long-range conventional systems and the threat of further proliferation of nuclear weapons, missiles and antimissile defenses in the world.

· The P5 Forum should find the way of overcoming the obstacles to engaging the United Kingdom, France and China in the process of nuclear disarmament in accordance with Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

· To enhance the strategic stability all nuclear states should commit themselves not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon NPT member-state and to abandon all first nuclear strike options against each other.

· In order to proceed with the plan of the Zone Free of the Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East the parties involved should adopt a step-by-step approach, capitalizing on the break-through in Syrian chemical weapons disarmament.

· The failure to achieve the final agreement by the planned deadline in the P5+1 negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program represents a setback. All parties should apply their best efforts and means to overcome the deadlock. In the final settlement the highest priority should be given to the ratification by Iran of the 1997 Additional Protocol and its acceptance of the undertaking not to develop reprocessing technologies, and to refrain from heavy water-related and enrichment-related activities, which are not required for its peaceful energy and scientific needs, and to refrain from constructing new facilities for such activities.

· The six-party talks on North-Korean nuclear arms and nuclear program should be resumed without delay. The primary goal should be to dissuade North Korean leadership from further nuclear and long-range missile tests with the ultimate goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and providing security to all countries in the region.

Members of the Supervisory Board Meeting of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe

Affiliation is for identification purposes only.