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Talks could lead to cut in UK's nuclear stockpile, says Gordon Brown

This article is more than 14 years old
Prime minister rules out unilateral reduction
Tougher inspection regime to be proposed

Britain's nuclear stockpile could be reduced after multilateral talks next year that are likely to flow from a global summit on nuclear weapons, Gordon Brown indicated yesterday.

The summit, to be convened by Barack Obama, is expected to come up with a new regime to prevent nuclear proliferation and the safe storage of nuclear stockpiles. It is likely to involve up to 30 countries, providing an opportunity for discussion on a more intrusive weapons inspection regime and a chance for nuclear weapons states other than Russia and the US, which between them account for 95% of nuclear weapons, to contribute to the disarmament process.

Talks are due next year anyway on a successor to the 40-year-old nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The Obama summit, which is likely to be held in March, will also look at the risks posed by nuclear terrorism, the safety of nuclear stockpiles and atomic smuggling.

The safety issue has been made more urgent by the expected worldwide spread of civil nuclear power. Obama briefed his fellow G8 leaders on his plan following his summit in Moscow earlier this week, where he signed a framework accord aimed at cutting stockpiles to as low as 1,500 warheads. Britain is acting earlier than intended, mainly because of worries that proliferation is in danger of accelerating, driven by fear of a nuclear North Korea and nuclear Iran.

Gordon Brown indicated that a key aim of the Obama summit could also be to discuss a new inspection regime, whereby countries such as Iran would be placed under a tougher obligation to prove that they were not developing nuclear weapons. In return, non-nuclear weapon states would be given greater help with developing civil nuclear power.

In the next few days, he is due to publish a plan setting out detailed British proposals on civil nuclear power, disarmament and non-proliferation, fissile material security and the role and development of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In a speech in March, Brown pointed out that Britain had halved the number of its nuclear warheads since 1997, and said it was ready to reduce the number further in multilateral discussions.

Yesterday, Brown stressed he was not planning to reduce Britain's stockpile unilaterally, or to revisit the decision to press ahead with a replacement for the Trident nuclear weapons system. But he indicated a better weapons inspection regime would help give Britain confidence to disarm.

He said: "We have to show that we can deal with this by collective action. Unilateral action by the UK would not be seen as the best way forward. We are prepared to reduce our nuclear weapons, but we need new kinds of assurances that other countries are not proliferating."

Brown added: "We need a tougher regime so the onus will be on the countries that do not have nuclear weapons to prove this. One of the problems with Iran is the question of whether you can prove or not that they have nuclear weapons. If there is an international agreement that requires all countries to be open with the rest of the world then Iran would have to prove to us that it did not have nuclear weapons, rather than us to prove they were developing nuclear weapons.

"It is not guilty unless proven innocent, but if a country has accepted an obligation not to have nuclear weapons then you have got to prove and demonstrate that is the case, and I would think people would think that is fair."

Paul Ingram, director of the British American Security Information Council, said there were several ways Brown could slim down the Trident force without abandoning it altogether. "It wouldn't surprise me if he looks at force structure – the numbers of warheads, how many submarines, how many missile tubes, patrol arrangements. They all enable the government to consider how it can on one hand maintain some kind of nuclear deterrence but at the same time away from a cold war posture."

However, Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association in Washington, portrayed Brown's offer as a half-measure. "His government needs to more carefully explain why it needs to retain that Trident force in the first place," Kimball said. "Who are they deterring, why and in what circumstances? There seems to be no explanation except that it serves as a vague insurance policy against some vague future threat."

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