Debate article
Svenska Dagbladet 08 April 2010
Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister
Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs

Important step towards a world free of nuclear weapons

Today's treaty between the United States and Russia inspires hope. Sweden will work for further concrete steps to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons. As a high-tech nation we have an important role to play, write Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt.

In Prague today, US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign the important treaty on new reductions in their countries' arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons. On Monday, together with heads of state and government and foreign ministers from some forty other countries, we will travel to Washington to take part in the summit on new nuclear security issues to which President Obama has invited a select group of countries.

For those of us who want to see a world free of nuclear weapons, it is important that concrete steps are taken towards realising our vision. This is why Sweden historically has been so intensely committed to these issues.

Half a century ago, when Sweden actively considered whether our security required nuclear weapons of our own, careful security policy reflection led to the unequivocal conclusion that such a decision would be more likely to lessen our security. Since then we have been among the countries that have been most active in efforts to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. We have been among those that have sought to persuade existing nuclear powers to move step by step towards a world free of nuclear weapons.

Before the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force four decades ago, it was widely feared that a large number of states would acquire nuclear weapons. Although that was not the way it turned out, this does not mean we should underestimate the dangers that lie ahead.

There are still serious question marks surrounding Iran's nuclear technology programme as well as North Korea's explicit policy to become a nuclear power. This is a matter of grave concern, which moreover risks opening the way for continued proliferation of nuclear weapons in sensitive and unstable regions.

At the meeting in Washington next week and the NPT follo-up conference in New York at the beginning of May, Sweden will work for concrete steps to be taken to increase global security and prevent the proliferation of both nuclear weapons and technologies that can lead to nuclear weapons.

As a high-tech nation with considerable expertise and a clear policy on these issues, we have an important role to play. Now, when an increasing number of nations are choosing to expand their nuclear power capacity, we can show how we built up an extensive nuclear power programme without building up a complete nuclear fuel cycle. We can show how as long ago as the beginning of the 1990s, we converted the research reactors that we then had in Studsvik to use low-enriched uranium.

The international community is also aware of the active measures Sweden has taken to avoid our high technology being used for purposes that might have been dangerous.

Today's treaty between President Obama and President Medvedev is an important step forward, but it is only one of several necessary steps. For example, it is particularly important in our part of the world that the treaty is also followed by talks aimed at a sharp reduction - and in the long run, elimination - of tactical nuclear weapons.

The review of the US nuclear weapons strategy presented by President Obama on Tuesday calls specifically for such talks. This is positive. The review also mentions the possibility of withdrawing such weapons to central stockpiles for subsequent gradual reduction. It goes without saying that our country has a special interest concerning tactical nuclear weapons in our immediate vicinity.

Nuclear weapons are now gradually taking on a more and more limited role in the US security doctrine. We hope to see the same development in Russia.

These days the risk of a global nuclear war hardly exists. Instead, the risks lie in the possibility of such weapons spreading to unstable regions or falling into the hands of terrorists. Preventing this is an interest that everyone should be able to agree on.

Here the former rivalries between the United States and Russia no longer exist. It should therefore be possible for a new and trusting cooperation on these issues to develop and gradually extend to include other nuclear powers as well. The position of China is particularly important.

Sweden's vision of a world without nuclear weapons will not be a reality tomorrow. But we are convinced that it is now actually possible to begin to take important steps towards this goal. In this connection, the treaty signed today in Prague is important, as are next week's summit in Washington and next month's NPT conference in New York.

On the basis of our security policy expertise and our high-tech know-how, Sweden will be involved and will play an active role in every step that takes us closer to our vision.

FREDRIK REINFELDT

Prime Minister

CARL BILDT

Minister for Foreign Affairs