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No verification plans for UK's nuclear warheads

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, June 10, IRNA -- The UK government remains unwilling to allow independent verification of the country’s nuclear arsenal despite revealing the number of its warheads.

“We have no plans to establish procedures to allow the international community to verify the UK's nuclear warhead stockpile,” Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said when challenged in parliament.

“The UK has made this announcement in order to be more open, but we have to limit access to military sites in order to protect our national security interests and to adhere to safety and security measures,” Burt said.

Last month, Foreign Secretary William Hague revealed for the first time that Britain’s overall stockpile of nuclear warheads would not exceed 225, when announcing there had been no reduction in the maximum number of 160 that are operational.

“We judge that this will assist in building a climate of trust between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states and contribute therefore to future efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons worldwide,” Hague said.

In a written parliamentary answer published Thursday, Burt insisted that the UK “recognises the importance of an effective verification regime to achieving the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Although the UK has no plans to verify its own warhead stockpile, he said it “has been pursuing internationally acclaimed research with Norway and the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre, a non-governmental organization, on the verification of nuclear warhead dismantlement.”

When announcing the controversial replacement of Britain’s Trident nuclear missile system four years ago, Britain’s Labour government said it would cut Britain's "operational warheads" by 20 per cent, but Hague made no mention of this in his announcement last month.

He simply said the new coalition government has pledged a strong UK role in the recent NPT Review Conference and was “showing our commitment to working towards the long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons.”

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End News / IRNA / News Code 1170279