The Report of the Tokyo Forum for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament

PART THREE:
STOPPING AND REVERSING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

PROLIFERATION CHALLENGES IN THE 21ST CENTURY

1. To stop and reverse the global spread of nuclear weapons, the international community needs to recognise the magnitude of proliferation dangers and take corrective action based on a comprehensive strategy. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) provides the basis for concerted action, but neither the nuclear-weapon states (NWS) nor the non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) are doing enough to reverse the unraveling of its regime. The Treaty must be reaffirmed and revitalised.
2. A comprehensive strategy would also utilise regional and other global non-proliferation instruments and arrangements, including nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZ) and effective but fair export controls. Tightened controls on the world's vast quantity of nuclear weapons-grade fissile materials, together with extensive transparency and monitoring, are essential to stop nuclear weapons spreading further. Ballistic missiles compound the dangers of nuclear proliferation, so any comprehensive non-proliferation strategy must also seek to limit their spread.
3. At the turn of the 21st century, the momentum towards a universal and effective global nuclear non-proliferation regime generated by the close of the Cold War is in danger of being lost. The new nuclear proliferation challenges come from many directions. Poorly-secured materials, technology or weapons may leak across borders. States claiming to adhere to the NPT or regional agreements may maintain clandestine programs. Terrorists may acquire nuclear technology and materials. Components for nuclear weapons may become cheaper and simpler to get. The perception of the conventional military superiority of technologically advanced states may lead some other states to see greater value in weapons of mass destruction. And proliferation in one state or region may trigger it in others. What then can be done to address these challenges?

STRENGTHENING THE NPT

4. The NPT is the lynchpin of global nuclear non-proliferation. It rests on a core partnership between nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states and their solemn pact to eschew and eliminate nuclear weapons. This partnership must be reaffirmed if the treaty is to survive and deal effectively with new proliferation threats. The NPT was aimed at preventing nuclear proliferation beyond the five nuclear-weapon states, defined as states which exploded nuclear devices before January 1 1967. As a consequence, to recognise India and Pakistan as nuclear-weapon states after their May 1998 nuclear tests would set a dangerous precedent of legitimising nuclear proliferation. Alternately, to simply ignore their actions and capabilities might increase the likelihood of arms races and nuclear crises in the region, and leave open the possibility of nuclear-weapon technologies being transferred from that region to aspiring proliferators. Thus NPT parties face crucial questions of how to secure Indian and Pakistani cooperation with global non-proliferation efforts without condoning or rewarding nuclear proliferation.
5. The way out of this dilemma is not to bow to proliferation but to fulfil the basic bargain of the NPT by strengthening non-proliferation measures and by reducing progressively and eliminating nuclear weapons. An immediate step towards the former is to expedite acceptance and implementation of the International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocol to NPT safeguards agreements, making it a new non-proliferation standard. The latter requires reducing the numbers and salience of nuclear weapons, and making weapon inventories and national stocks of fissile material transparent. The discriminatory basis of the NPT regime need not constitute a moral and practical flaw in the treaty provided that the nuclear-weapon states and the non-nuclear-weapon states keep their parts of the bargain. If they do not, however, then the regime will certainly continue to unravel, and those parties that maintain good faith will be less and less able to strengthen or even preserve it.
6. The package of non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful nuclear energy provisions in the Treaty has led to tensions - exposed frequently at NPT review conferences - over which of its objectives should take precedence. The 1995 indefinite extension of the Treaty, achieved in the context of decision documents on Strengthening the Review Process and Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, as well as a Resolution on the Middle East, included a revised review process. It authorised a Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) to discuss substantive matters in the period leading up to the Review Conference in 2000. The implementation of this strengthened process has been impeded by the parties' long-standing tensions and a lack of consensus on its modalities. Some states argue that because PrepCom sessions are not meetings of the parties, but subordinate bodies of Review Conferences, they cannot act as functional substitutes for a standing executive body or other permanent organ. The NPT contains no provisions for permanent institutions or executive bodies, other than the now mandatory requirement to hold a conference every five years to review the Treaty's operation. Moreover, the Treaty has no mechanism to authorise action against non-compliance.
7. The Tokyo Forum is convinced that steps must be taken to increase the ability of NPT parties to prevent, and react effectively to, cases of proliferation. It calls for the creation of a permanent secretariat and consultative commission for the Treaty. This would be a guardianship organisation, charged with serving the objectives of all Treaty parties in pursuing non-proliferation and disarmament. Consideration of options for such an executive body should begin urgently. In addition, the Forum stresses the importance of the 2000 NPT Review Conference for the preservation and strengthening of the Treaty regime, and the need for all participants to adopt constructive approaches and focus on their common interest in strengthening it.

STRENGTHENING OTHER MULTILATERAL NON-PROLIFERATION INSTRUMENTS

8. To further reinforce the effectiveness of the NPT, other multilateral instruments in the non-proliferation regime must be strengthened. These include regional elements, notably nuclear-weapon-free zones, and security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states.

Strengthening the CWC and BWC

9. The verification arrangements of the Chemical Weapons Convention have been eroded by implementation decisions, making it more difficult to detect non-compliance. In addition, at a time when biological weapons capabilities are growing and new scientific advances suggest increased availability of biological weapons in the future, negotiations on a verification protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention are still problematic. Moreover, the international community has found no successful way to deal with proven cases of material breaches or other non-compliance in the context of the 1925 Geneva protocol, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention. Unless the international community adopts strengthening verification measures for these accords and effective measures to deal with non-compliance, chemical and biological threats could become a significant concern for international security.

Strengthening Regional Instruments

10. The geographical coverage and non-proliferation significance of nuclear-weapon-free zones have become more salient as nuclear dangers have grown. The key commitment of NWFZ treaties is that states parties will not acquire nuclear weapons nor allow them to be stationed on their territories. They require nuclear-weapon states to make an unconditional commitment, known as a negative security assurance, that they will not threaten or use nuclear weapons against NWFZ states parties. The unconditional negative security assurances and the commitments by NWFZ states parties go well beyond those in the global non-proliferation agreements.
11. These regional compacts are now setting more far-reaching non-proliferation and disarmament goals than the global regimes. Part of their special value is that they demonstrate the commitments of many states - particularly in the developing world - to disarmament and non-proliferation. The regional nuclear-weapon-free zones can build high levels of confidence among various neighbouring states. At the same time, regional nuclear-weapon-free zones are not substitutes for effective global regimes; each complements the other.
12. Treaties to create nuclear-weapon-free zones were signed in Latin America in 1967, the South Pacific in 1985, Southeast Asia in 1995 and Africa in 1996. All ban nuclear weapons within a specified territory, task the International Atomic Energy Agency with verification responsibilities, and establish permanent treaty organs. The 1995 Treaty of Bangkok has a system for dealing with allegations of non-compliance which involves requests for clarification, requests for a fact-finding mission and procedures for remedial action. The 1996 Treaty of Pelindaba contains compliance provisions, mechanisms for the destruction of existing nuclear devices, commitments on conditions for exports to non-nuclear-weapon states, physical protection requirements, and prohibition of attacks on peaceful nuclear installations in the zone.
13. Another agreement aimed at keeping nuclear weapons out of specific territory is the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula signed in 1991 by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK). This was followed in 1992 by an Agreement on the Formation and Operation of the North-South Joint Nuclear Control Committee. The 1994 Agreed Framework between the United States and the DPRK reiterated the goal of a denuclearised Korean Peninsula.
14. Work is well advanced on creating a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia, where five states have agreed on a draft treaty and are now discussing it with the five nuclear-weapon states. The creation of such a zone is becoming increasingly important to global non-proliferation goals. Aspirations have also existed for many years to create zones in the Middle East, Central Europe and South Asia. Proposals have been made to formalise links between Southern Hemisphere zones. This would highlight that almost all states in that hemisphere were within such zones and that more than 100 states were potentially in receipt of unconditional negative security assurances from the nuclear-weapon states.
15. The Tokyo Forum urges all parties concerned to redouble their efforts to achieve the goal of a denuclearised Korean Peninsula as soon as possible. Major efforts also should be made to bring fully into force the Treaties of Bangkok and Pelindaba, and their protocols, as well as establishing their regional institutions. In addition, the Tokyo Forum strongly supports the rapid conclusion and early entry into force of a treaty to create a Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone. Efforts should be made to promote the creation of new nuclear-weapon-free zones and to link those that exist.

Strengthening Security Assurances

16. Assurances that nuclear weapons will not be used against a non-nuclear-weapon state give many such states a strong security incentive to maintain and increase their support for the global non-proliferation regime. The five nuclear-weapon states, however, have not agreed on a common formula to codify their unilateral negative security assurances, without which the assurances cannot be brought together in a multilateral legal form. At contention are the differing conditions which the nuclear-weapon states attach to the implementation of their negative security assurances; whether such assurances should only be given to NNWS parties of the NPT or be of universal application; and whether they should be negotiated in an NPT forum or the Conference on Disarmament. The Tokyo Forum calls on the five NWS to actively seek agreement on a common formula for negative security assurances to NNWS parties to the NPT, and explore the possibility of negotiating a legally-binding agreement.
17. The Forum also notes that positive security assurances - including guarantees of assistance to states threatened or attacked by nuclear weapons - can be a further incentive for non-nuclear-weapon states to support non-proliferation.
18. In January 1992, the President of the United Nations Security Council declared on behalf of the members of the Security Council that the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction constituted a threat to the maintenance of international peace and security. The Tokyo Forum urges the international community to seek to reconfirm this statement as a Security Council resolution. If proliferation were to be defined thus, sanctions against a proliferating state could flow more easily through the Security Council. The Tokyo Forum also calls on permanent members of the UN Security Council to announce that they would refrain from exercising their vetoes against efforts to assist or defend UN members states which are subject to the use or the threat of use of weapons of mass destruction. The Tokyo Forum considers that all current and prospective permanent members of the UN Security Council should have exemplary non-proliferation credentials.

TIGHTENING CONTROLS ON FISSILE MATERIAL

19. One of the most pressing nuclear proliferation problems facing the world lies in the sheer amount of stockpiled fissile material for nuclear weapons, and the problems of keeping it secure and disposing of it safely and irreversibly. The problem is most acute in Russia and some other parts of the former Soviet Union. About 3,000 tonnes of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) exist in the world, of which less than one percent is under safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Two-thirds of the world's plutonium and highly enriched uranium was produced specifically for military purposes, and two-thirds of this - about 1,300 tonnes - is now considered surplus to military requirements. The United States and Russia have the largest stockpiles of fissile materials, with hundreds of tonnes each. France, the United Kingdom and, reportedly, China each have roughly tens of tonnes, and India, Pakistan and Israel hundreds of kilograms each. But the size of national stockpiles is not the only measure of the danger they pose.

Declaring an End to Production

20. France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States have formally announced that they are no longer producing fissile material for weapons purposes. China has also indicated unofficially that it has stopped producing fissile material for weapons purposes. A public statement from China confirming its private assurances would greatly aid progress on controlling fissile material. India and Pakistan have active production programs; it is likely that their stocks of weapon-grade material are increasing. It is not clear whether Israel is continuing to produce fissile material for weapons purposes. India, Pakistan and Israel should also declare, as soon as possible and before conclusion of the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, national moratoria on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes.

Expediting Negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty

21. A Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) is a precondition for success in nuclear non-proliferation, as well as a building block for nuclear disarmament. It would help to curb nuclear proliferation and facilitate efforts to detect and monitor clandestine production and acquisition. The Tokyo Forum calls on the Conference on Disarmament (CD) to act on the 1995 Shannon Mandate for the negotiation of a FMCT. The Conference must overcome the political stalemate that delayed the establishment of a negotiating ad hoc committee until August 1998 and has frustrated its re-establishment in 1999. The treaty needs to be concluded as quickly as possible. However, the issue of fissile material stockpiles is important. The Tokyo Forum recommends that the issue of fissile material stocks be discussed in parallel with, but outside, the formal FMCT negotiations in order to speed the process. Verification measures under an FMCT should augment and not undermine the NPT/IAEA safeguards system including its Additional Protocol.

Increasing Transparency

22. While the non-nuclear-weapon states are legally obliged under the NPT to place their fissile materials under the safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency, there is no treaty to control fissile materials in the nuclear-weapon states or the non-NPT countries. Some of the nuclear-weapon states, however, have taken steps to assist accounting and control. In the nuclear-weapon states and non-NPT states, military inventories of fissile material are subject to national controls but not to any external checks. Nor are the responsible bodies always fully accountable to national legislatures.
23. Countries with nuclear weapon programs have long kept secret the details about their fissile materials, but since the end of the Cold War some have unilaterally accepted partial transparency. The United States has begun a process of publishing its inventories of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. In 1993, it launched the "Openness Initiative" to reveal information on fissile material produced and used for military purposes. Details on plutonium were published in June 1994 and February 1996, with details on highly enriched uranium to follow. In 1998 the United Kingdom announced the size of its military stockpile of fissile material and committed itself to publishing the results of a more wide-ranging audit.
24. The Tokyo Forum urges all states with unsafeguarded fissile materials - the nuclear-weapon states and relevant non-NPT states - to voluntarily increase the transparency of their fissile material stockpiles. Those that have not already done so should begin a process of internally auditing their stocks. The results from the internal audits should be published annually. This transparency measure would have significant confidence-building effects, and could help expedite FMCT negotiations. Transparency measures on fissile material, including any at a regional level, should be linked and coordinated with the International Atomic Energy Agency and structured to ensure full transparency on nuclear material accounting.

Preventing Nuclear Terrorism

25. Poorly-secured fissile material is attractive not just to states seeking nuclear weapons, but also to a new type of potential proliferator: nuclear terrorists. There is now a real possibility that sub-state forces with hostile aims - political, fanatical or criminal - may acquire the materials and technology needed for crude nuclear weapons. An act of nuclear terrorism would be a catastrophe, and no country is safe; indeed, the strongest states might be the most likely targets. Governments may seek to exchange information and enhance their detection and response capabilities, but terrorists will always have the advantage of being difficult to identify and deter. The Tokyo Forum calls for regional and global cooperative efforts to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands of extremist, fanatical or criminal groups. Efforts to fight nuclear terrorism could be backed by new legal norms, including an international treaty on nuclear terrorism, advocated by Russia and now being negotiated in the United Nations. To be useful this instrument must add materially to existing legal means. Any measure that strengthens the international norms and existing legal means is worthy of support.

Improving Material Protection and Control

26. There is a pressing need to improve international standards for physical protection aimed at preventing theft or clandestine diversion of fissile materials. The materials must be adequately contained, in facilities and in transit. This requires trained and armed personnel with formal policing powers, perimeter fencing and monitoring, special storage facilities, containers and vehicles. The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, in force since 1987, must be accepted and fully implemented by all relevant states. Urgent consideration should be given to widening the scope of the convention, now concerned mainly with materials in transit. The 1994 Convention on Nuclear Safety, for safe carriage by sea of irradiated fuel, plutonium and high-level radioactive waste, and the 1997 Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and Radioactive Waste, can also help stop the theft or diversion of nuclear materials for use in weapons.

Strengthening Controls and Threat Reduction Programs in Russia

27. Ever since the demise of the Soviet Union there has been great concern over the physical security of the large amount of fissile material on its territory. The material accounting procedures in the USSR were not particularly rigorous, so the precise size of the problem is not known. Its scale is clearly vast. Economic difficulties in Russia are compounding concerns that fissile material, including that from dismantled warheads, may be removed from storage and transferred illicitly. While important initiatives have been undertaken to prevent this, the sheer amount of material necessitates far greater efforts. Very little has been disposed of, either through storage as waste or burning as fuel. Meanwhile, salaries for guards go unpaid while agents of proliferators may be looking for fissile material, small amounts of which have huge importance in an embryonic weapons program. The Tokyo Forum calls urgently for greater international cooperation to combat nuclear smuggling, with mutually-supporting roles for police forces, intelligence and customs agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
28. Greater international cooperation is required for Russia and other CIS members to improve nuclear material protection, control and accounting. Since 1994 many countries, including the United States, Japan and the European Union, have provided financial contributions and expertise to this end. The United States, under the Nunn-Lugar or Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, has provided about US$1.8 billion for 18 projects. Other G7 members have contributed considerably smaller amounts. Assistance needs to be maintained and intensified in, for example, destruction of nuclear weapons, provision of reinforced containers, storage facilities and transport for fissile materials, and research on mixed oxide fuel recycling. The International Science and Technology Center needs support to continue funding civilian projects for former Soviet scientists. The international community needs to expand threat-reduction programs in Russia as a matter of urgency. The United States recently announced US$4.5 billion for the Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative, to help tackle proliferation threats including those arising from the loosening of controls on plutonium due to the Russian financial crisis. The Tokyo Forum urges the other G7 countries to provide additional resources for threat-reduction programs and calls on other members of the international community to follow the lead of the United States.
29. The Tokyo Forum is deeply concerned that the pace of establishing control over, and disposing of, highly enriched uranium and plutonium in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union is too slow and the risk of leakage too high. Greater efforts need to be made, and by more states, to ensure the physical control and urgent disposal of plutonium and highly enriched uranium in the former Soviet Union. Disposal programs should be subject to tighter time schedules, with dates for completion. Excess highly enriched uranium should be diluted to low-enriched uranium for its introduction to civil power production as soon as possible. The financial cost of these tasks will be high. Private as well as government sources of funding should be sought, to ensure that the greatest possible resources are deployed to address the problem in the shortest possible time.

Extending Fissile Material Verification and Safeguards

30. The technical barriers to increasing non-proliferation monitoring and controls over all civil and military nuclear material, including developing a register, are not insurmountable. The civil nuclear industries of the non-nuclear-weapon states have long been subject to international inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the scope of the latter is being extended. It is reasonable to expect that extensive records have been kept of the production of fissile material - for military and civilian use - in other states also. International verification is feasible if governments, especially in the nuclear-weapon states, are prepared to declare their stocks.
31. The verification of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty would be difficult without the establishment of a reasonable defined data baseline of existing fissile material stocks in the nuclear-weapon states. The negotiations and conclusion of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty can be expected to enhance transparency and availability of data. This would be an important step towards the goal of universal application of safeguards.
32. The Tokyo Forum calls on all NPT parties that have not yet done so to give the International Atomic Energy Agency increased powers to implement safeguards, by bringing into force the Additional Protocol to their existing safeguards agreements. The Forum also notes that continuing improvements to safeguards will be needed to keep the system as effective as possible in dealing with deliberate violations. Extra resources would of course be needed for expanded safeguards inspection activities, but cost increases could be minimised if political impediments were removed to long-sought changes to the methods and procedures of IAEA safeguard inspections.
33. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United States and Russia launched a trilateral initiative in 1996 to explore the technical, legal and financial issues in bringing surplus fissile material stocks under IAEA verification. Russia and the United States have announced that they will submit their declared excess materials to verification "as soon as practicable" under their voluntary offer safeguards agreements with the Agency. The United Kingdom has also declared it has "excess" military material that will be placed under Euratom safeguards. The Tokyo Forum urges expansion and acceleration of these initiatives and encourages other NWS to do the same. All states with nuclear weapons programs should agree to IAEA safeguards over excess military fissile materials, including material removed from warheads dismantled under arms reduction treaties, and its early and irreversible disposal.
34. The Tokyo Forum calls on all those nuclear-weapon states that have not already done so to place all civilian stocks of fissile materials under IAEA safeguards pursuant to their voluntary offer agreements. Non-NPT states should place part of their stockpiles under IAEA safeguards at agreed annual rates, and negotiate voluntary offer agreements with the Agency. All states with civil plutonium and highly enriched uranium should make annual declarations on their holdings.
35. The Tokyo Forum urges states, whether or not they belong to the NPT, to make unilateral commitments to place under IAEA safeguards facilities previously used to produce fissile materials for nuclear explosive devices, and to decommission and dismantle facilities they have used previously for that sole purpose.

STRENGTHENING NUCLEAR EXPORT CONTROLS AND IMPROVING THEIR TRANSPARENCY

36. The national export controls coordinated under the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) help retard the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles. But the effectiveness and transparency of these controls can and should be improved.
37. While participants in export control arrangements firmly argue that their controls do not impede legitimate trade, the counter-claims that the regimes are exclusive, discriminatory, and lacking in transparency, persist. Differences between states over export control regimes could be a major obstacle to strengthening restraints on proliferation. Participants in export control arrangements face the challenge of responding constructively to the critics of the regimes, while maintaining the effectiveness of their controls. The Tokyo Forum calls for greater transparency in nuclear-related export controls within a framework of dialogue and cooperation between members and non-members of the regimes, in the light of the agreement to this end in the Principles and Objectives decision document associated with the 1995 permanent extension of the NPT.
38. Some existing or potential suppliers of sensitive items are not members of export control regimes. The Tokyo Forum calls for expansion of the export control regimes to include current non-member suppliers, without jeopardising the effectiveness of export controls. Some efforts to this end are already underway. The admission of Russia to the NSG and MTCR was a positive step. It is now especially important to encourage China to pursue its declared policy of actively considering joining the MTCR. New members would have to adhere to the strict export control standards of the regimes for their membership to have positive results for non-proliferation.
39. Another way to address the problem of non-member suppliers is to encourage them to adopt export controls as close as possible to the strictness and effectiveness of those required for members of the regimes. This approach can be pursued in parallel with efforts to expand membership. Stronger outreach and transparency efforts by member states, including bilateral consultations with and technical assistance to non-member countries, would greatly help concerned non-members establish effective export control systems.
40. There is an urgent need to strengthen the conditions for the supply of sensitive nuclear materials and technologies. The Tokyo Forum calls on all supplier countries to stipulate that an IAEA Additional Protocol safeguards agreement between the recipient country and the IAEA is a new condition for the export of nuclear-related items. Participants in the NSG, however, would need to be aware that the conclusion of an Additional Protocol agreement by a destination country would not automatically mean that all exports of items on the control lists could then automatically flow freely to that country. It would still be the responsibility of each NSG member state to determine whether a country of destination had dispelled proliferation concerns.
41. The Tokyo Forum calls on those states participating only in the Zangger Committee to join the Nuclear Suppliers' Group in order to make their nuclear-related export controls more effective. The Forum also calls for strengthening of the MTCR by tightening national export licensing procedures.
42. The Tokyo Forum reiterates the need for the strict implementation of MTCR export guidelines, and calls on Russia to implement more rigorous controls on missile and nuclear weapons technology and materials. In this regard, the Forum stresses the necessity for the international community to closely cooperate with Russia in denying nuclear weapons materials and missile technology, as well as precursors for other weapons of mass destruction, to state or non-state proliferators.

CURBING MISSILE PROLIFERATION

43. A comprehensive response to nuclear proliferation must also address concerns about the spread of ballistic missiles. While there are treaties prohibiting chemical and biological weapons, and treaties to stop the proliferation and testing of nuclear weapons, there is no multilateral treaty specifically regulating missiles. Following flight tests of long-range missiles by India and Pakistan in April 1999, the UN Secretary-General stated that international agreements on norms against the development of ballistic missiles for military purposes would substantially improve prospects for progress on disarmament and arms control treaties.
44. Past US-Soviet/Russian efforts and agreements on nuclear arms control such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, INF and START controlled, reduced and eliminated ballistic missiles. Thus, for the declared nuclear-weapon states, ballistic missiles have been closely associated with the carriage of nuclear weapons. For other states with nuclear weapons programs or suspected nuclear ambitions, efforts to acquire ballistic missiles will automatically raise suspicion of parallel efforts to acquire nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. The Tokyo Forum believes that development, acquisition, flight-testing, production and deployment of ballistic missiles can constitute a threat to regional peace and security.
45. The Tokyo Forum urges the international community to seek realistic ways to prevent acquisition and deployment of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. A special conference of states concerned at transfers of missile technology outside the MTCR should be convened to deal with the growing problem of missile proliferation. One possible approach that merits serious consideration is the negotiation of a global agreement, or regional agreements, that would draw upon the provisions of the 1987 US-Soviet INF Treaty. Multilateralisation of the INF Treaty would have the added specific benefit of helping reduce threat perceptions in southern Asia without discriminating against specific countries. Another approach is to work in bilateral or regional frameworks, particularly in the Middle East, South Asia and Northeast Asia. Proper consideration would need to be given to the security concerns of the countries involved. Enhanced security dialogues would help create the conditions under which regional measures against missile proliferation could be envisaged.

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