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Baroness Symons Addresses Conference Reviewing Progress
on The Cold War Legacy Clean-Up
Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom
March 4, 2004

Foreign Office Minister Baroness Symons opened an international conference today assessing progress on reducing the risk of proliferation resulting from the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons legacies of the Cold War in former Soviet Union countries.

Baroness Symons said:

'We are more aware than ever today of the threat posed by clandestine weapons programmes and by the black market in weapons, knowledge and materials of mass destruction.'

'Our efforts to counter the proliferation menace have to be aimed at the many different cogs in the proliferation machine. Improving export controls on proliferation sensitive materials can deny access to the raw materials to those who might intend their misuse. The Proliferation Security Initiative aims at intercepting the transport of weapons and materials where arms control treaties and export controls have not been effective. And of course, co-operative threat reduction is aimed at reducing the threats posed by the weapons legacy of countries in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in the world.'

'Every chemical weapon destroyed is a weapon that cannot be used. Every scientific mind redirected is one that contributes to building peace and prosperity rather than weapons to destroy it. And every tonne of spent nuclear fuel or fissile material disposed of will never again be available for weapons production. So I have no doubt about this. It is an extraordinarily hard slog, but it is vital work.'

Notes for Editors

1. The UK is hosting the third Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Co-operation Initiative Conference on 4-5 March at Lancaster House, London. The NDCI is an informal group of countries, formed in 2001, involved in non-proliferation and disarmament in the former Soviet Union.

2. The conference brings together 180 experts from around the world to discuss all aspects of co-operative threat reduction in the Former Soviet Union. Delegates include representatives from the G8 countries, the European Commission and some Former Soviet Union countries.

3. Projects include the destruction of chemical weapons, dismantlement of nuclear powered submarines and retraining of ex-weapons scientists for peaceful purposes.

4. The UK has been working to help manage the nuclear, biological and chemical legacies of the Former Soviet Union since the early 1990s. At the Kananaskis Summit in 2002, G8 leaders pledged to provide up to US$20 billion over ten years from a new Global Partnership against the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The Prime Minister committed up to $750 million to this work in 2002. The UK's First Annual Report on the G8 Global Partnership was published in December 2003.

5. The conference aims to:

o Take stock of efforts so far;

o Assess the scale and nature of the task remaining;

o Identify opportunities for new or expanded co-operation on specific project areas;

o Identify potential obstacles to early progress, lessons learned and new approaches.