UK 'can be leader' on nuclear stage

Friday, 17 July 2009 12:00 AM

By Alex Stevenson

Britain's small stature among the world's five nuclear nations does not mean it cannot adopt a leadership role, it has been suggested.

Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow for non-proliferation at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, told politics.co.uk the "wisdom and energy" of Whitehall civil servants mattered more than the size of the UK's nuclear stockpile.

Both Britain and France are considered to have the minimum number of warheads needed to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent.

France has over 300 warheads and two delivery systems, while Britain relies on its Trident submarines and has 160 warheads.

"In many ways Britain is a leader in promoting new policies," Mr Fitzpatrick said, as he assessed the Road to 2010 document published by London yesterday.

It stresses the need to concentrate on nuclear security as well as disarmament, non-proliferation and controlling civil energy as a "fourth pillar", government officials said yesterday.

These issues will be discussed at a conference reviewing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty next year.

"Britain can lead in terms of promoting the technologies to verify specific disarmament measures," Mr Fitzpatrick added.

"This year Britain is leading. [and] has a very willing partner in Washington. The two of them will be working very closely together to set the stage."

Senior officials in Whitehall acknowledged Britain's diminutive role among the P-5 nuclear nations means its ability to press for nuclear disarmament is limited.

Mr Fitzpatrick agreed. "If the issue is, 'can Britain lead the world into reduction of overall arsenals?' - probably not," he said. "That's very much dependent on the two that have 95 per cent of the weapons."

Russia and the US have offered grounds for optimism. The world's biggest nuclear powers recently reached a preliminary deal extending their bilateral START agreement, which could lead to cuts in their respective arsenals of up to a third.

"That creates a very important atmosphere of change to demonstrate the willingness on the part of nuclear weapons states to fulfil disarmament obligations," Mr Fitzpatrick added, looking ahead to next year's conference.

"That will make it much easier to start to persuade other states to adopt stronger non-proliferation commitments."

The ongoing problem of Iran presents a headache which could ruin this international agreement, however.

The Middle Eastern country is persisting with its development of nuclear technologies which it claims is for exclusively civil energy uses. Experts disagree, suspecting it of harbouring ambitions for an atomic weapons capability of its own.

Mr Fitzpatrick said he expects Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium, "growing larger every day", will lead to a "stalemate" by the end of the year.

"It will pose a grave difficulty," he warned.

"The NPT conference decisions have to be made by consensus and so Iran could very well be a spoiler again.

"How to neutralise Iran. will be an important focus of diplomacy leading up to May and that's one of the reasons why Britain and the United States have been out front in promoting the disarmament agenda and trying to bring countries like Egypt into a shared consensus."

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