China stresses security assurance for non-nuclear-weapon states

People's Daily Online -- China stresses security assurance for non-nuclear-weapon states: "'It is the right of non-nuclear-weapon states to seek security assurance from nuclear-weapon states,' Hu told a plenary session of the Conference on Disarmament.

Having refrained from developing nuclear weapons, non-nuclear- weapon states are fully justified and reasonable to demand that they should be not threatened by nuclear weapons and to insist that this form of security assurance be made legally-binding, he said.

'The fundamental solution to the issue ... is a complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons,' the ambassador added.

Launching negotiations on an international legal instrument on security assurance for non-nuclear-weapon states, he said, is a realistic task in the current context of international arms control and disarmament.

The adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 255 and 984 showed that nuclear-weapon states have provided certain security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon states, but the resolutions do not amount to international legal instruments, said Hu.

'We are of the view that any such international legal instrument or protocol must clearly stipulate that the five nuclear-weapon states provide unconditional security assurance to non-nuclear-weapon states,' said the Chinese ambassador.

China has all along undertaken not to be the first to use nuclear weapons, not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states and nuclear-weapon-free zones at any time and under any circumstances, he told the conference.

Source: Xinhua

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