First draft agreement unveiled at NPT conference

The first draft agreement designed to free the planet from nuclear arms was circulated in United Nations at a conference on the 189-nation Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The first draft agreement designed to free the planet from nuclear arms was circulated in United Nations at a conference on the 189-nation Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

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The draft, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, proposes a 26-point action plan to establish peace and security in a nuclear weapons-free world. It was prepared by Zimbabwe's UN Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku.

The proposal reaffirms the validity of NPT including Article VI, which commits nuclear states to eventually getting rid of these weapons. But it underlines that his should be done to a predefined calendar.

It calls on nuclear states to begin talks no later than in 2011 with the aim of speeding up the nuclear disarmament process.

That would lead to a 2014 UN conference to draw up a plan for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, said the document.

The five original nuclear weapon states -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- pledged to move towards disarmament. Non-weapon states forswore the bomb in return for access to peaceful nuclear energy.

But since the treaty came into force in 1970, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have all acquired a nuclear weapons capability.