U.S. President Barack Obama committed to taking substantive steps toward nuclear nonproliferation during a recent 8-day diplomatic trip to Europe. The president said he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had taken the first steps towards reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles during the G20 Financial Summit in London early this April and would negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The current START-I Treaty between the two countries expires December 5, 2009.
In speech on April 5th in Prague the president condemned a recent North Korean rocket launch and called for global efforts to reduce nuclear weapons testing. Obama said, “To achieve a global ban on nuclear testing, my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. After more than five decades of talks, it is time for the testing of nuclear weapons to finally be banned.”
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