[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 10 (Monday, March 13, 2000)]
[Pages 474-475]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty

March 6, 2000

    Thirty years ago--March 5, 1970--the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation 
of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) entered into force. The countries that 
negotiated the NPT had clear and important goals. They wanted a safer, 
more secure world in which states not possessing nuclear weapons would 
foreswear their acquisition, and in which states with nuclear weapons 
would work toward eliminating them. They wanted an effective 
verification system to confirm these commitments. And they wanted to 
ensure that countries could use the atom peacefully to improve the lives 
of their people without spurring nuclear weapons proliferation.
    On that day in 1970, 43 countries committed themselves to the vision 
of the NPT. Today, there are 187 parties. Over the past 30 years, the 
NPT has served as an increasingly important barrier to the spread of 
nuclear weapons. The United States remains committed to achieving 
universal adherence to the NPT and will continue working to bring all 
remaining countries into the treaty.
    The strength and effectiveness of the NPT today are a legacy of 
countless individuals who crafted and promoted this irreplaceable 
treaty. I am proud that during my administration the parties to the NPT 
made a major contribution to lasting peace and security by agreeing in 
1995 to make the treaty permanent.
    Adherence to the NPT, together with inspections called for in the 
treaty by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), provide 
assurance to countries that their neighbors' nuclear programs are 
peaceful. The United States strongly supports the IAEA and calls on 
other NPT parties to work with us in strengthening the IAEA's ability to 
ensure compliance with the treaty.
    Such compliance allows countries with nuclear technology to share 
the many peaceful benefits of the atom, reducing the risk that this 
cooperation will not result in weapons activities. Improved human 
health, increased food production, and adequate supplies of clean water 
are only a few of the many ways

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in which nuclear techniques contribute to a better world.
    The NPT also calls for parties to ``pursue negotiations in good 
faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms 
race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.'' Remarkable progress 
in nuclear disarmament has occurred since the end of the cold war. Under 
the START process, the United States and Russia have committed to reduce 
deployed strategic nuclear warheads by approximately two-thirds from 
cold war levels. We have agreed to a START III framework that would cut 
these arsenals by 80 percent from those peaks, and we will intensify our 
efforts to work with Russia to bring this agreement into effect. 
Already, the United States has eliminated some 59 percent of our overall 
nuclear weapons, and many U.S. facilities once dedicated to the 
production of nuclear weapons have been shut down, deactivated, or 
converted to other uses. Our nuclear weapons are no longer targeted 
against any country; our Army, Marine Corps, and surface and air Navy no 
longer deploy nuclear weapons; and our bomber force no longer stands on 
alert.
    NATO has reduced the number of nuclear warheads dedicated to its 
sub-strategic forces in Europe by 85 percent, and NATO's dual capable 
aircraft, the Alliance's only nuclear forces, are no longer maintained 
on alert status, and their readiness levels have been reduced from 
minutes to weeks.
    The United States and Russia are cooperating to ensure no further 
production of weapons-usable material, the safe storage of existing 
quantities of such material, and internationally supervised elimination 
of surplus stocks of nuclear materials.
    We will continue the U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing and work to 
establish a universal ban through the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban 
Treaty. The Conference on Disarmament should take the next essential 
step for global nuclear disarmament by negotiating a fissile material 
cutoff treaty now, without conditions.
    The United States is committed to the ultimate elimination of all 
nuclear weapons. Achieving this goal will be neither easy nor rapid. 
Accordingly, the United States rededicates itself to work tirelessly and 
expeditiously to create conditions that will make possible even deeper 
reductions in nuclear weapons and, ultimately, their elimination.