The Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, Werner Hoyer, travels to New York tomorrow (Tuesday, 4 May) to attend the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). There, on behalf of the Federal Government, he will work towards strengthening all three pillars of the NPT

• disarmament,
• non-proliferation and
• the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Before departing, Minister of State Hoyer issued the following statement today (3 May) in Berlin:

”The NPT is and will remain the bedrock of nuclear non proliferation and global disarmament. The international community must take decisive and credible steps in these fields. I therefore hope that the New York conference sends a strong message of unity among all States Parties. Increased global arms control makes the whole world a safer place, something which is in the interest of all states.“

In New York Hoyer will also hold bilateral talks with, among others, his Japanese counterpart Tetsuro Fukuyama and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano.

The NPT Review Conference, which takes place every five years, will be held in New York from 3 to 28 May. During the last conference in 2005, unlike the 2000 meeting, no final agreement was reached on further NPT progress. The 1995 and 2000 Review Conferences had led to consensus on major disarmament and non proliferation issues.