News Item: Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Mexico to Host Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Conference

Representatives from more than 100 member nations of the world’s four nuclear weapon-free zones have been invited to attend a conference set to be held April 26-28 in Mexico City, the Mexican Foreign Ministry announced yesterday (see GSN, July 9, 2004).

The nuclear weapon-free zones cover Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Africa, Kyodo News reported.

Mongolia, which declared itself a nuclear weapon-free zone in 1992, would also be invited to the first-ever conference on such sectors, according to Kyodo News. The five nuclear weapon states — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — would be invited as observers.

Conference participants are expected to adopt a declaration on the importance of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to call for full disarmament by the nuclear powers.

The nuclear powers would also be urged to offer “effective guarantees” that “they will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against” the non-nuclear nations.

The conference would contribute to “the combat against dangers related to the existence and the proliferation of the nuclear weapons,” said Joel Hernandez, general director of the ministry’s United Nations’ System (Kyodo News/Yahoo!News, Jan. 25).

This article first appeared on NTI: Global Security News wire

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