N-powers urged to end 'dual standards'

TOKYO (AFP) - The centre-left prime ministers of Japan and Australia voiced their support Tuesday for a report calling for a cut of more than 90 per cent in the worlds nuclear arsenals.
The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) called for the global stockpile of atomic arms to be cut to 2,000 from 23,000 - 22,000 of them held by the United States and Russia - by 2025.
Australias Prime Minister Kevin Rudd travelled to Tokyo to meet his Japanese counterpart, Yukio Hatoyama, for the launch of the report, which was commissioned by both their governments.
A guidebook that will lead the world to peace is now complete, and this is really wonderful, Hatoyama said of the report.
Rudd called it an important framework for discussions and debate on non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament in what will be a critical year in 2010.
The report was written by a 15-member panel headed by former Australian and Japanese foreign ministers Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi ahead of a global meeting next May to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The 1970 treaty, reviewed every five years, has been severely strained, the panels report said.
The last review conference in 2005 was an unrelieved disaster with backsliding on disarmament commitments by key players such as the United States then president George W. Bush, it added.
At the same time, nuclear states India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have not ratified the non-proliferation treaty, the report said.
Maintaining the status quo is not an option, said Evans. Nuclear weapons are the most inhumane weapons ever conceived... they outweigh any conceivable security benefits.
Evans said the US and other nuclear powers should drop their dual standards of wanting to keep their own nuclear arsenals while pushing for non-proliferation elsewhere.
Nearly half of all global warheads are operationally deployed, and the US and Russia have over 2,000 weapons that are on dangerously high alert, ready to be launched within four to eight minutes, the report said.
The US has an arsenal of around 9,000 weapons and Russia 13,000, it said. China, which does not make public its arsenal, is estimated to have up to 240 warheads, while India and Pakistan each have about 60 to 70, it said.
Israel, the only undeclared nuclear power, has between 60 and 200 nuclear weapons, according to the report, which said that Iran is believed to have a weapon-making capability. The ICNND has among its members former US defence secretary William Perry, ex-Norwegian premier Gro Harlem Brundtland, and representatives from China, Russia, India, France, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Its extensive advisory council includes former US secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, as well as the United Nations former top weapons inspector Hans Blix.
Meanwhile, Japans government will likely freeze new spending on its joint missile defence system with the US after the cabinet decided on budget cuts Tuesday, media reports said.
The cabinets decision would probably delay the deployment of new Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors (PAC-3) until after April 2011, said Kyodo News and other major media, citing unnamed sources.