Arms Control Experts Praise Nuclear Security Agenda Outlined in the President’s State of the Union
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 28, 2010
CONTACT: Katie Mounts, Director of External Relations
Washington, D.C. – Arms control experts at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation praised the bipartisan nuclear security agenda reiterated by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address.
“The President deserves praise for his continued efforts to lead a bipartisan nuclear security agenda that addresses the grave threat posed by nuclear weapons,” said Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, the Center’s chairman. “As the President said, he has embraced the vision of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan through a strategy that reverses the spread of nuclear weapons and seeks a world without them.”
In his speech, the President identified key steps toward reducing the threat posed by nuclear weapons, including finalizing an agreement between the U.S. and Russia to verifiably reduce their nations’ nuclear weapons stockpiles, securing loose nuclear materials around the world in four years, holding a nuclear security summit with global leaders in Washington, D.C. in April, and dealing with the threats posed by North Korea and Iran.
Gard added, “Nearly every national security expert agrees that terrorist use of nuclear weapons against the United States is our gravest security threat. The best way to address the threat of nuclear terrorism is by securing vulnerable nuclear materials and verifiably reducing nuclear stockpiles, just as President Obama has pledged to do.”
“Today there is a growing bipartisan consensus that the current nuclear status quo is no longer tenable,” said the Center’s executive director John Isaacs. “21st century threats require 21st century solutions, and the President has already taken crucial first steps toward securing our nation from the threat of nuclear weapons.”
Indeed, just hours before giving the State of the Union, the President spoke with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and the leaders agreed that the negotiations to complete a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which reduces the countries’ nuclear weapons stockpiles, are nearly complete.
“These first steps, including an expected finalized new weapons reduction treaty with Russia, are important and should be applauded,” Isaacs added, “but we still have a long way to go.”
The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation is one of the nation’s oldest and largest organizations dedicated to reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons.
RSS Feed