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U.S. Welcomes Possible Easing of New Zealand Rules on Nuclear Ships
A call by New Zealand’s National Party to relax rules barring any nuclear vessels to dock is a “positive, constructive” development in discussions on the island nation’s relationship with the United States, the U.S. Embassy in Wellington said yesterday (see GSN, May 6). The country’s main opposition party this week issued a report recommending that nuclear-powered ships be allowed at New Zealand’s ports. However, the National Party said that the ban on nuclear-armed vessels should be maintained and that all nuclear ships should still be considered unwelcome. The U.S. Embassy in Wellington promised to forward the report to Washington, according to the New Plymouth Daily News. The plan was based on policy in Denmark, which asks its allies not to send nuclear ships to its ports. One research effort found, though, that 54 nuclear-capable U.S. ships visited Denmark between 1975 and 1985. “It was quite clear that, unless they spent a lot of time at sea with no nuclear weapons on board at all, or unless they took with them some special ships to which they could offload weapons when they went into Danish ports, then they must have had their weapons on,” said Robert White, director of the Center for Peace Studies and a retired nuclear physicist. No nuclear ships have visited Denmark since the United States removed nuclear weapons from its surface vessels, said Wyatt Creech, former National Party deputy leader (Nick Venter, New Plymouth Daily News).
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