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Foreign Minister Westerwelle on the Non Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI)/Joint Statement
On the margins of the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Westerwelle attended the 5th Ministerial Meeting of the Non Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI) at the Permanent Mission of Australia. Other participants included the Foreign Ministers of Australia, Japan, Uruguay, Turkey and the Netherlands, as well as representatives of the other NPDI states.
The meeting discussed the need for further steps towards nuclear non proliferation and nuclear disarmament in the strategic and sub strategic fields.
The Ministers adopted a Joint Statement summarizing the outcome of their discussions.
Following the meeting, Foreign Minister Westerwelle said:
Disarmament and non proliferation are two sides of the same coin. It is important that all nuclear-weapon states improve transparency regarding their arsenals. The importance of nuclear weapons in military doctrine needs to be further reduced.
Within NATO we have made major progress in this regard, and other nuclear powers should follow suit. It’s good that we have at last put sub strategic nuclear weapons on the disarmament agenda as well as strategic nuclear weapons.
NATO has offered Russia a dialogue on this. One objective is the withdrawal of remaining nuclear weapons from Germany, agreed with our partners, a goal to which the German Government is fully committed.
