In a bid to strengthen non-proliferation, the United States wants to secure loose nuclear material within four years and also ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bans all forms of atomic explosions, the country's top diplomat to the United Nations has said.
"We want to secure loose nuclear material within four years. We want to start a follow-on agreement. We want to ratify the CTBT. We want to have a fissile material cut-off," US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice told reporters in response to a question outside the Security Council at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
In its capacity as the President of the UN Security Council for the month of September, the US has convened a head-of-the-state level meeting of the 15-membered body on September 24 on nuclear non proliferation and nuclear disarmament. The meeting would be chaired by US President Barack Obama.
"This is an opportunity that we very much welcome, that will bring the Security Council further into the discussion of the sorts of topics that President Obama raised in his speech in Prague," Rice said. "It is an opportunity for the Council, which obviously has a deep stake in nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament, to continue its thinking and to concert its action. We will work very closely with our partners in the Council over the coming weeks to ensure that it's a maximally productive session," she said.
Noting that it will be one of the rare occasions in which the Security Council has met at the heads of state level, Rice hoped that this will be a well attended session.
"It is a topic this Council has been focused on and seized with and which, I think all of our colleagues agree, merits the highest level of attention," Rice said.
Earlier in a statement on Tuesday, Rice said the Security Council has an essential role in preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons and is also the world's principal multilateral instrument for global security cooperation. "The session will be focused on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly and not on any specific countries," she said.
