ACCESSION NUMBER:240236
FILE ID:TXT103
DATE:08/24/92
TITLE:PROGRESS ON NON-PROLIFERATION (08/24/92)
TEXT:*92082403.TXT
PROGRESS ON NON-PROLIFERATION

(VOA Editorial)  (420)
(Following is an editorial, broadcast by the Voice of America August 24,
reflecting the views of the U.S. government.)

Recently, the United States and Russia concluded an agreement that calls
for what President George Bush described as "the most far-reaching
reductions in nuclear weaponry since the dawn of the atomic age."  Last
month, U.S. and Russian delegations met in Moscow to discuss the
possibility of establishing a Global Protection System against ballistic
missile attack.  President Bush has warned that "even as our own arsenals
diminish, the spread of the capability to produce or acquire weapons of
mass destruction and the means to deliver them constitutes a growing threat
to U.S. national security interests and world peace."

The United States is now working to try to slow the spread of these weapons.
 The United States is focusing its attention on those areas where the
problems of missile and weapons proliferation are the most serious:  the
Middle East, South Asia, and the Korean peninsula.  Last year, the United
States announced its Middle East Arms Control Initiative.  The initiative
calls on the five major suppliers of arms to the Middle East -- the United
States, Britain, France, Russia, and China -- to discuss the establishment
of guidelines for restraints on destabilizing transfers of conventional
weapons and weapons of mass destruction.  Also proposed is a freeze on the
acquisition, production, and testing of surface-to-surface missiles by
states in the Middle East with the goal of eventually eliminating these
weapons from their arsenals.  In addition, all Middle East states would be
encouraged to implement a verifiable ban on the production of the material
used in nuclear weapons.

The United States itself has stopped producing plutonium and highly enriched
uranium for the purpose of building nuclear bombs.  This step is intended
to encourage countries in regions of tension, such as the Middle East and
Asia, to take similar actions.
1
In sharing technology with other states, the United States will take into
account whether those countries are involved in the spread of weapons of
mass destruction.  The United States will cooperate with other states to
sanctions those who transfer weapons of mass destruction or the facilities
needed to build them, violate safeguards agreements, or actually use
nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.

As President Bush has said, "the United States is committed to take a
leading role in the international effort to thwart the spread of
technologies and weapons that cast a cloud over our future."

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