Final Document of the International Luxembourg Forum's Conference on Achievements and Prospects of Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in 2010.

The participants in the conference of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe positively assess this year’s accomplishments in the area of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, which have set the basis for revitalizing the process of the enhancement of world nuclear security after many years of stagnation and setbacks.

The conclusion of the new US-Russian START Treaty in Prague, the holding of a conference on the security of nuclear materials and technologies in Washington and the successful adoption of the Final Document at the NPT Review Conference in New-York have been the highlights of the year in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. We note that a number of the key recommendations of the Luxemburg Forum meetings and documents have been implemented in practical international agreements and official declarations.

A number of important additional steps remain to be taken that would make the progress achieved irreversible.

The first priority step with regard to nuclear disarmament must be the successful ratification in the nearest future of the New START Treaty on the basis of positive resolutions by the US and Russia’s legislative bodies. We consider this Treaty to be a modest but necessary and substantive step on the path toward nuclear disarmament through well balanced, equal, stabilizing and verifiable strategic arms reductions. It will enhance the security of both parties, their allies and all the world, further diminish the threat of nuclear war, slow down weapons modernization programs and reduce military expenditures.

The second priority for sustaining the START process is for the US, Russia and European NATO states to start without delay intensive consultations on the development of cooperative ballistic missile defense systems. In order to stop endless debate on missile threats it would be highly useful to begin by reviving some of the past projects, which have been left in limbo in recent years. Foremost this relates to the project of the Joint Data Exchange Center (JDEC) on missile and space launches in accordance with the 2002 Joint Declaration on the New Strategic Relationship. The JDEC should be brought into action without further delay and made to function in real time scale as the first link of US-NATO and Russia’s ballistic missile early warning system. Additional centers could be established in the USA and NATO (Brussels).

Also the combined BMD exercises of Russia, USA and NATO must be resumed with its potential enlargement beyond the theater of war operations.

Third. In parallel the US-Russian consultations should begin on a follow-on START agreement with the view to further strategic offensive arms reductions (down to 1000-1200 warheads) after enactment of the new treaty, i.e. aiming at a date earlier than by the date of expiration of the Prague Treaty (2020). Within the context of the consultations on the follow-on treaty a number of issues should be discussed: mutually acceptable forms and stages of offensive strategic arms reductions and limitations and joint development of defensive strategic systems; and the problem of converting of strategic systems for delivering high-precision conventional weapons under mutually acceptable terms; of limiting the up-load capacity of operationally deployed strategic forces; real loading capacity counting rule; greater transparency; broader verification regime and better predictability of forces’ development. Of special importance for the proposed consultations is the question of timing and forms of engaging third nuclear weapons states in the process of nuclear arms limitations and reductions.

Fourth. The participants recognize that the full potential of Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991/92 on the part of Russia and USA are not exhausted. As an important step Russia could declare the total number of its nuclear charges in its active arsenal. A further step could be to announce the number of tactical nuclear weapons that Russia has eliminated since 1991 as well as the number of nuclear charges awaiting dismantlement.

The US and Russia should also initiate consultations on the reduction and limitation of sub-strategic, or theater nuclear weapons (TNW), in particular: the methods of their attribution to this class, the specific counting rules and the principles and possibilities for verification. We believe that the goal of this process should be to reach agreement 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. This could be done either as a prelude to, or in conjunction with, the verifiable elimination of such weapons in stages, together with the strategic nuclear warheads, removed from operationally deployed strategic forces.

Fifth. Initiation of step-by-step engagement of the other nuclear states, primarily the United Kingdom, France and China, in the nuclear arms limitation process. To that end, it would be useful during the first stage for them to take unilateral and voluntary obligations and accept the confidence-building and transparency measures of the kind that apply to Russia and the United States under the new START Treaty. Unilateral moves by Britain and France towards greater transparency and predictability of their nuclear forces provides a good basis for creating of such a regime.

Sixth. In parallel with the TNW consultations, NATO and Russia should resume consultations on conventional armed forces and weapons limitations in Europe with the goal of reviving the Adapted CFE Treaty. A first step in that direction could be the revival of the transparency and verification regimes of the Adapted CFE and commitment not to exceed its territorial and national quotas. By designating the South Caucasus as a special region, NATO states may commence with the ratification of the Adapted CFE Treaty – while Russia resumes full scale adherence to the core CFE Treaty. All parties should also make commitment to give consideration to Russian demands on the enhancement of the Treaty, and on including the Baltic states’ in the Treaty as well as possible additional proposals from NATO and the CIS states as the subject of the negotiations on the follow-on agreements.

Seventh. An important step for the short term period must be the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This means that it must be ratified by the United States, the People’s Republic of China, and other countries, without whose participation said Treaty cannot enter into force. In that regard the participants in the conference are pleased to note the importance of the commitment expressed by the current U.S. Administration.

Eighth. We insist in the strongest possible terms that Iran fully implement all of the six relevant UN Security Council resolutions on the Iranian nuclear program. The prolonged crisis over this issue and the high level state of readiness of the Iranian fuel cycle complex for weapons-grade enrichment presents a great danger to the sustainability of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and peace and stability in the Middle East, and exacerbate the threat of nuclear terrorism.

We believe that the first priority should be attached to the ratification and full implementation by Iran of the 1997 Additional Protocol. Further expansion of Iran’s industrial uranium enrichment capacities should cease without delay and eventually become a subject of agreed limitations and full transparency under the IAEA safeguards.

Once all of the outstanding issues have been removed with the IAEA Iran should be the subject of equal standards and non-discriminatory treatment under the NPT norms. Iranian declarations of the peaceful intentions in conducting its nuclear activities are to be welcomed and should be taken as a binding political commitment, which should be embodied in practical agreements. In return Iran should receive the explicit security assurances, stating that they will not be attacked if they do not initiate any attack.

Negotiations on the establishment of the Nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East in the context of the overall security arrangements should be promoted at the appropriate international forums, as recommended by the 2010 NPT Review Conference Final Document.

In case of a lack of cooperation by Iran in meeting its international obligations the international community should undertake the additional measures to further restrict economic cooperation with Iran and take all necessary measures fully reflecting the obligations conveyed in the article 41 of the UN Charter.

Ninth. The military nuclear program carried out by North Korea together with its continuing efforts to develop and test a new generation of long-range missiles and provocative actions and declarations, call for the imposition of considerably tougher sanctions to be imposed by the United Nations Security Council in full accord with Article 41 of the United Nations Charter.

North Korea should implement the obligations it assumed under the September 2005 Statement of Principles – to dismantle its nuclear materials program and return to compliance with the NPT and receive in return security assurances that they will not be attacked if they themselves do not initiate an attack.

The first priority of negotiations with DPRK, in case of their resumption, should be the return of IAEA inspections and monitoring over all of its nuclear facilities. Next step should be the dismantling and utilization of its existing nuclear explosive devices and cessation of all military nuclear activities in return for the security guarantees, economic cooperation and humanitarian assistance by the nations of the North-Pacific region.

Tenth. The participants in the Luxembourg Forum conference consider that it is essential to resume without delay negotiations on concluding a FMCT without linkage to any other issue. For the first stage it could be possible to limit the agreement to the five NPT nuclear weapon states and to confine it to a ban on producing weapons-grade uranium. Simultaneously as a verification method for such an agreement the mentioned states might subject all their enrichment facilities to IAEA safeguards. This would have the important positive effect on the enhancement of NPT regimes and facilitate efforts aimed at internationalization of the nuclear fuel cycles.

It would also encourage further steps towards a FMCT/FMT, including by expanding the initial uranium agreement to all states and eventually banning the production of weapons-grade plutonium. The longer term goal is to create a regime of transparency, accounting and limitation of all stocks of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that would open the way towards actual dismantling of the nuclear warheads and utilization of the nuclear materials removed from weapons and from weapon stockpiles for peaceful purposes.

Eleventh. Within the framework of the Conference on Disarmament or at another suitable forum, substantive negotiations should begin on preventing an arms race in outer space. To facilitate this process the participants in the Luxembourg Forum conference propose that the three states that have tested space (anti-satellite) weapons in the past (i.e. the United States, Russia and China) come to agreement on a verifiable ban on testing of any type of weapon deployed in space, against space object (satellite or ballistic missile and their elements in flight trajectory); and a verifiable ban on testing of any type of weapon, no matter where deployed, against space objects (satellites). Such a ban on testing against actual target with the destruction of the target would tangibly and verifiably limit the development of space-based BMD interception systems and anti-satellite systems of any basing mode, and concurrently reduce the amount of space debris, threatening civilian and military support space assets.

An important step in this direction would be the adoption of a Code of Conduct for activities in Outer space.

Twelfth. With the goal of enhancing the non-proliferation regime, the conference calls on the countries-members of the NPT to adopt decisions to step up the monitoring activities of the IAEA and allocate resources necessary to do so. Above all, they should work to turn the 1997 Additional Protocol into a universally recognized norm for verifying compliance with NPT obligations and also to introduce new standards in the area of nuclear exports. The five NPT nuclear weapon states should agree on a common set of priorities and persuade the NSG to include the ratification of this Protocol in all future contracts that relate to the transfer of nuclear materials and technologies.

We consider the next priority to be the inclusion in all such contracts of a provision for obligatory return or dismantling and elimination of all materials and technologies acquired by a state-member of the NPT in case of its decision to withdraw from the Treaty in accordance with article X of NPT.

The aforementioned proposal calling for the five NPT nuclear weapon states to place their nuclear fuel facilities under IAEA safeguards would significantly enhance their political standing for achieving the priorities listed above.

Further expansion of Nuclear Weapons Free Zones should be an important issue according to the demand of the 2010 NPT Review Conference. We consider this to be an important and positive project, provided that the security of all states involved is reliably ensured by legally binding agreements, and that all hostile statements and acts disputing their right to exist are strictly prohibited and punished as acts of aggression.

It is also necessary to develop with all available means multilateral approaches for an economically sound and practicable alternatives to the creation of the critical elements of the nuclear fuel cycle at the national level.

The role of the UN Security Council in the enhancement and enforcement of the NPT regimes must be drastically increased.

Thirteenth. The participants in the Conference recommend that research be carried out to define the critical parameters and criteria for measuring compliance with international non-proliferation obligations and identifying behaviors that would seriously threaten international security. These criteria would serve as red lines the crossing of which would signal to the international community the need for urgent actions.

Members of the Supervisory and Advisory Councils of the International Luxembourg Forum

Clean CSS files are essential for an optimized website. Free online tool by HTML Cleaner.