An international panel on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament has compiled a draft report calling for reducing the number of nuclear warheads in the world to less than 1,000 by 2025 from the present more than 20,000, panel sources said
The International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, which was established at the initiative of Australia and Japan, worked out the draft ahead of its final meeting scheduled to be held Sunday through Tuesday in Hiroshima, the world's first atom-bombed city.
The draft report titled "Eliminating Nuclear Threats," a copy of which was obtained by Kyodo News, calls for achieving, as a medium-term action agenda item to 2025, "a world with no more than 1,000 nuclear warheads."
However, some representatives to the panel have expressed doubts if the target can be incorporated in the final report, the sources said yesterday.
The draft report tones down some key points from the previous draft which was discussed in the previous session in Moscow in June. It extends the target year for US President Barack Obama to work out a new nuclear doctrine to 2012 from the spring of 2010 in the previous draft.
The previous draft urged Obama to work out such a doctrine before the review conference of parties to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty which is scheduled to be held next May.