Obama pledge on nuclear weapons wins praise at UN
By Edith M. Lederer
Associated Press
May 4 2009
UNITED NATIONS – President Barack Obama’s pledge to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons won praise Monday from China and key developing countries, and spurred hope that Washington’s policy shift and new U.S.-Russian cooperation will end a long deadlock on global disarmament efforts. …
… there was widespread recognition — even from Iran — that Obama’s engagement with the Russians was an important reversal from Bush administration policies, which didn’t seek negotiations on major arms control cuts and angered Moscow by announcing its intention to install a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
In a joint declaration on April 1, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered negotiators to start work on a new treaty reducing their nuclear stockpiles as a first step towards “a nuclear-weapon-free world.” The U.S. president also promised to seek speedy Senate ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty and to launch a global effort to secure nuclear material.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090505/ap_on_re_us/un_un_nuclear_disarmament
