|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Australia Calls on More Asian Nations to Join WMD Interdiction Effort
More Asia-Pacific nations should become involved in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, which is aimed at interdicting illicit WMD-related shipments, Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill said today (see GSN, Nov. 15). “It is imperative to expand Asia-Pacific countries’ support for and, where possible, involvement in the PSI,” Hill told an international conference of PSI experts held in Sydney, according to Reuters. “Several instances have been revealed of weapons of mass destruction-suitable materials and missile parts and technology being diverted through front companies in the region. Many more, no doubt, have eluded our scrutiny,” he said. Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand are the only Asia-Pacific countries publicly affiliated with the effort. China and South Korea have been reluctant to join, seemingly to avoid offending North Korea — widely seen as a prime target of the initiative, according to Reuters. North Korean U.N. Ambassador Pak Gil has said the involvement of Russia, Japan and the United States in PSI would undermine efforts to resolve the standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Hill, however, encouraged Asian nations to join the initiative as an effort to prevent WMD proliferation. “Countries with weapons of mass destruction programs or aspirations, notable North Korea and Iran, have dishonored their international treaty obligations,” Hill said. “It is clearly in all countries’ security interests to prevent the advent of more nuclear weapons states, especially in regions of instability and conflict,” he added (Michelle Nichols, Reuters, Nov. 29).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
