World Free Of Nuclear Arms

US President Barack Obama mapped out on Sunday his vision for a world free of nuclear weapons on the latest leg of his tour of Europe after venting his fury at North Korea’s “provocative” rocket launch. On the third leg of his maiden swing through the continent, Obama was in the Czech Republic whose prime minister recently branded the White House’s plans to revive the US economy as “a road to hell.” But any offense taken by the undiplomatic language of his hosts is likely to be buried by the US president who has won over Europe’s major leaders on his trips to London for a G20 summit and a NATO gathering hosted by France and Germany. Thousands of Czechs waited since before dawn to catch a chance to hear Obama deliver a keynote nuclear proliferation address outside Prague Castle that took on added significance overnight with news that North Korea had carried out its pledge to fire a rocket over Japan. “With this provocative act, North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint and further isolated itself from the community of nations,” Obama said in a statement from Prague. “We will immediately consult our allies in the region, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, and members of the UN Security Council to bring this matter before the council,” he added.

Much of the speech is expected to focus on easing nuclear tensions with Russia, which has been angered by plans from Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush for an anti-missile shield to be placed in the Czech Republic and Poland. In the statement issued before the speech, Obama confirmed plans to negotiate a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia by the end of the year as part of an overall objective of a creating a “world without nuclear weapons.” “The new treaty will reduce strategic offensive arms below the levels of the 2002 Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, which allows for 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads,” it said. The White House said that Obama would seek Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and call for a global summit on nuclear security in the speech. The summit would discuss how to forge new partnerships to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to secure nuclear materials.

Gary Samore, Obama’s pointman on weapons for mass destruction, said the president was under no illusions that his “very ambitious” vision for a nuclear-free world would soon become reality. “In terms of a nuclear-free world, I think we all recognize this is not a near-term possibility,” Samore told a conference call in Washington. “What we’re talking about are practical measures we can take in the near term that will demonstrate our commitment to achieving a nuclear-free world and will move us in that direction in terms of reducing existing arsenals,” he said. Czech Deputy Premier Alexandr Vondra told Agence France-Presse last week that he did not expect the United States to scrap its missile shield plans, despite Obama’s decision to review the scheme, which Moscow opposes. “It’s up to the Americans to say what their ideas are,” he said. The shield project was officially devised by Bush to defend against long-range ballistic missiles possibly fired by “rogue states” such as Iran, but Moscow views it as a threat to Russian security.