Vatican's U.N. representative warns against violating nuclear treaty

Published: 2004-05-03

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican official warned that states with nuclear weapons were compromising the effectiveness of a world treaty against the proliferation of nuclear arms. In a speech released by the Vatican May 3, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's representative to the United Nations in New York, said the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was being "severely compromised." The treaty "promised a world in which nuclear weapons would be eliminated and nuclear technology cooperation for development would be widespread," he said April 27 at a U.N. conference on the treaty in New York. Archbishop Migliore said the landmark agreement hinged on the promise by states without nuclear weapons to not acquire them in exchange for states with nuclear weapons to eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals. But he said nuclear-weapon states have not fulfilled their obligations to negotiate "effective measures related to the elimination of their nuclear arsenals."

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