NPT under tremendous pressure: Obama

Washington, May 4: US President Barack Obama said that the United States is committed to strenghten the Nuclear Non—Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which is under tremendous pressure, inorder to prevent the nuclear weapons from spreading.

"Forty years after the Nuclear Non—Proliferation Treaty entered into force, we have come together to answer a simple question with consequences for us all: as individual nations and as an international community, will we uphold the rights and responsibilities of all nations in order to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons," Obama in his message to the NPT Review Conference at the UN headquarters in New York.

"But today, this regime is under increasing pressure. A year ago in Prague, I therefore made it a priority of the United States to strengthen each of the treaty"s key pillars as we work to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and to pursue the peace and security of a world without them," Obama said.

"Over the coming weeks, we will see whether nations with nuclear weapons will fulfil their NPT obligations to move toward nuclear disarmament," he said.

He said that the NPT is the outcome of a collective efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons for four decades,

"We will see whether nations without nuclear weapons will fulfil their obligation to forsake them," Obama said.

The US President added that history proves that nations that tread on this path find greater security and opportunity as an integrated member of the international community.

"Nations that ignore their obligations find themselves less secure, less prosperous and more isolated. That is the choice nations must make," he said.

"America is committed to ensure that nations abiding by their obligations could access peaceful nuclear energy and it would pursue a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, the US president added.

OneIndia News