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tv   [untitled]  CSPAN  June 30, 2009 8:00am-8:30am EDT

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just a few minutes. .. continue to believe that this is a realistic goal that can be achieved over the next two decades. let me take this opportunity to introduce the members of the commission who participated in meetings this week. i am not going to give you their
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full backgrounds, we can provide that, but i will quickly, beginning on my right is ambassador tom pickering from the united states. ambassador jianmin wu from china. i am sorry. i just got the order wrong. on my immediate right is evgeny velikhov from the russian federation comment and from
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india, ambassador khan from pakistan, ambassadorsachan from japan, and tony lake from the united states. malcolm rifkind from the united kingdom, major-general tong from the people's republic of china, we also have on the phone with us igor yurgens from moscow.
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igor yurgens is the chairman of the management board of the institute of contemporary development and enjoys close ties with the presidential administration in russia. i am very briefly going to give you the main results of our deliberations to date. i will make one introductory point, there is a general consensus among the commission that whatever impact, positive impact nuclear-weapons may have had in terms of enforcing deterrence and stability during the cold war, any residual benefits of these weapons have been more than overshadowed in recent years by the growing risks of nuclear proliferation and the related risk of nuclear
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terrorism. that is why you can see a group like ours, which is really representative of a group of 150 former ambassadors, a military leaders, government ministers, who have joined this effort because they recognize that the risks associated with nuclear spread out way any stabilizing effect of nuclear weapons in today's world. with that in mind, i would like to show you a chart which in the presentation we have given you, it will be shown on the screen behind me, page 4, the global action plan. what it does is lay out four phases which will take roughly 20 years to achieve, bring the
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existing stockpiles world wide, of nuclear weapons, down to zero. and if you follow me, on page 5, we have the first stage or face, in which the united states and russia would reduce its total stockpile of nuclear weapons down to 1,000 nuclear warheads each. it would not be done in the current phase of negotiations which just got under way. that phase is designed to be done by the end of the year. that will reduce existing deployed warheads down to lower levels. we are talking about a follow on negotiation where the united states and russia, because they possess 95% of the world's nuclear stockpile, would take
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the lead in a second negotiation that would go down to 1,000 weapons overall. we can move on to the second aspect outlined on page 6. at the same time that the u.s. and russian sides are negotiating down to 1,000 weapons, there will be preparations for bringing in the other nuclear powers. that would consist of diplomatic efforts to urged those existing nuclear powers, show restraint, not to increase their existing nuclear arsenals. it would ask for more transparency to provide information on their nuclear weapons. create an inventory of warheads, and begin the process of
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creating a platform for a brand new negotiation which is discussed on page 7. in that new negotiation, what we call phase 2, which would take place between 2014, and 18, we did have the multilateral negotiation, where not only the two existing negotiating states, the u.s. and russia, would be at the table, but other nuclear weapons states as well. in that multilateral framework, we would seek an agreement that would, in which the united states and russia would continue their own reduction efforts down to 500 nuclear-weapons, as long as the other nuclear states agreed first to freeze their stockpiles, so there would no longer be a buildup on the part of other nuclear states. that freeze would then be followed by proportional reductions in their nuclear
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arsenals, which would be completed by 2020 one. that would be an aspect of the second phase. the other aspect of the second phase would be to strengthen the existing regime for nuclear fuel cycle safeguards. you can see the steps we propose on page 8. i think they speak for themselves. what we need to create is an international system for supervision and management of nuclear fuel cycle issues, especially focused on enrichment and reprocessing facilities. this will take us to the third phase, beginning in 2019, begin the process of actually trying
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to go to zero. we would propose doing this in two steps. we dwould like to achieve an agreement, all countries would reduce their arsenals by 50%, which would bring the u.s. and russian warheads down to 250 warheads apiece, other nuclear powers would have lower levels. and then, having achieved 50% reduction, we would then work to achieve the 0 d plants of nuclear-weapons by 2030. it would not be enough for the nuclear powers to reach this agreement. all nuclear capable countries,
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those countries that have the nuclear know-how and wherewithal to develop nuclear weapons would also be asked to ratify a global zero treaty and having achieved that. very rigorous, very comprehensive. verification and international enforcement system. on page 10, as i pointed out, we would get to zero by 2030, this enforcement and verification system would go into effect. what we tried to is not outline the only plan for getting to zero. as we tried to come up with a reasonable, pragmatic, credible pathway to getting to zero.
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other experts, other groups studying this problem may have had alternatives. we are not saying we are the only alternative worth examining. we are off on the right foot. what the commission will do going forward very briefly is the again, probably in moscow, flushing out the plan. we can assist those governments in outlining their own plans. we will generate greater support for the visions, president obama and president medvedev and members of this commission have
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embraced getting to we 0. we only have him briefly on the phone, we reject applicable of doing that, igor yurgens who is on the telephone in moscow, he has a few words to make. are you there? >> yes, thank you very much. can you hear me all right? >> we can hear you well. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. i am very excited to speak from moscow. richard gave a comprehensive picture of what we would like to achieve. as you said, very needed.
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without practical steps. 60 years, we have a full step. it is a gigantic test. president and, confirmed global zero is the target for mankind and the russian situation. we are heartened by this statement and we hope what will
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be achieved in terms of negotiations, declaration of some kind. the secret of the warheads and weapons and missiles during this negotiation, will be a step in the right direction. we wish them very well, try to bring them arguments and we are very thankful for the efforts. thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. >> thank you for joining us, igor yurgens. we look forward to seeing you at our next commission meeting in moscow. >> 100%. >> take care. >> before i open the floor to questions, we have a little audio/visual presentation to make for you. to do tha
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to do thagha to do thalid to do tha gun to do than to do that, i would like to call on of the global organization. >> i won't take too much time today. we heard there is a growing group of leaders and experts around the world who believe zero is the only sustainable answer -- sorry. did we start it? the only sustainable answer for the growing threat of nuclear proliferation, but it is also a growing number of citizens around the world acting on this issue, especially a young regeneration who feel that as up to us to solve this problem. this generation feels empowered by the internet and possibilities to communicate with one another, we also found the more people learn about this issue the more passionate they
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become about it and one of the first things we have done is develop an interactive map on our web site that allows people to tell friends and family about it. i wish i had more time talking about other ways but why don't we watch the map and i encourage you to go to www. globalzero.org to see other ways to get involved. ♪
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♪ ♪ ♪ >> alright, that was to underscore we are not only focused on the policy of trying to work out a realistic plan for reduction, but we are also
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engaged in out reach, not only here in the united states, but worldwide. i am going to open the floor for questions and i will try to be a traffic cop, try to steer the questions to the appropriate person on our commission for an answer. trevor? >> representing -- >> yes. hold on. are you a journalist? >> i am from the german newspaper. the most primitive and strongest argument, the opponent of the global bureau would say you can destroy the nuclear weapons but not the knowledge of how to rebuild them. >> there are plenty of examples
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of knowledge to do things where the international community has taken a strong position and created verifiable arms control regimes covering those. biological weapons, chemical weapons. you will never rid the world of the knowledge, but with a system of adequate verification, and inspection regime which will be very intrusive, and in an international enforcement mechanism, you are not going to be able to remove knowledge, but we believe, we are actually working on this as a high priority between now and our next commission meeting to
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elaborate, both a verification and an enforcement mechanism, would be capable not only of detecting any cheating but dealing with it. yes? >> i am with the washington post, conflict analysis at george mason university and abolition 2000. >> you have 3 business cards. >> they don't read them. >> this response to the other question, as a parallel process, as a complementary and supported process to bodies of knowledge and public transformation and second order change, this is wonderful work and i appreciate
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the publicity and imagery that you are doing. what about the enemy's? the body of knowledge in the field of conflict analysis and other processes, so we do not have to think we have to resort to war. for any conflict we can come up with non-violent strategies, the underlying issues and conflicts. and the millennial generation coming up, that have signed on to this, had that on his show and in communication with people all over the world on the internet, they are thinking about the other -- to support -- >> thank you for that. on the technical issues, we received a briefing yesterday
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from bruce blair, of the coordinators' of the global zero enterprise, and he made be interesting point that there really isn't the case in the history since the development of nuclear weapons in the 1940s, where people were actually taken by surprise by the development of a country of its own nuclear weapon. in other words, there are a variety of activities associated with developing and deploying nuclear weapons and in every case, whether it was after the united states, the soviet union, china, follow on nuclear states,
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governments and intelligence systems were able to provide clear indications that those developments were under way. there is always uncertainty about specific things like whether someone is going to test or not or when they are going to weapon nuys, build nuclear weapons. it is hard to hide that you are developing nuclear capability. >> i am a staff writer of a japanese newspaper. thank you for giving us this opportunity. i have one question.
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you mentioned that your approach is realistic and practical. is it possible to explain this a little bit more, which part is realistic and which part is practical? thank you very much. >> i'm going to in a moment turn the floor over to yukio satoh of our commission. but one thing that tells me it is realistic, if you look at the last page of this chart, you see one interesting reality is people may not be focused more knowledgeable of at, but we have been engaged in a fairly substantial nuclear build down or reduction for several years, in part, this is because of
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agreements that were reached. i worked on the treaty negotiated in the 1998s, that reduced u.s. and russian deployed weapons. since that time, there have been other u.s./russia agreements that led to further reductions. it is not just agreements that have done this. for budgetary and technical reasons, the united states and russia have built down their forces. this is a pre-existing trend if i can put it in those terms. the discussions we have had on this commission, which represents most nuclear weapons states, have convinced me that
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there is a growing constituency not only in government but in the public for further nuclear reductions. because there is a growing recognition that nuclear weapons, particularly in an era that they were easier to obtain, when the know how exists and there are groups, terrorist groups and others, makes the risk of nuclear proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons much greater. and that is an example of realism. it is not an example of thinking in cold war terms, but thinking in terms that are more appropriate for the 20 first century, where in my view, this is not the view of the commission but we are at a point where nuclear weapons will no longer be the weapons of the strong, they will increasingly be the weapons of the week.
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does yukio satoh want to add something? >> how realistic we are, whether we have been realistic or not will be seen later. 20 years later we look back and can tell. one thing that is encouraging me, we have forecast on russia, the united states and russia, gradually engage nuclear-weapons countries. given 95% of the nuclear-weapons in the arms of the united states and russia, the most realistic
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approach for us to engage, push them first, otherwise no other countries could afford them. this first step has been taken, the first stage, to forecast on the united states and russia, it is a sign of a realistic approach. the end results will be seen later. in this context, i want to emphasize the next summit, u.s./russia summit in moscow will be critically important. it would be successful, encouraging to engage other countries in the direction we hope we are going to move. >> i would like to ask tony lake to

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