United States Mission Geneva

Thank you. It’s an honor to be here in Paris at the Global Zero Summit and see so many old friends. Many of you have known and worked with me when I served as a member of Congress from California and it’s an honor to be here today representing the Obama administration.

A useful reference list of leading nonproliferation institutions, web sites and publications.

The U.S. delegation led by Assistant Secretary Rose Gottemoeller has returned for a recess from the START negotiations in Geneva. The team has gone through an intensive period of negotiations with their Russian counterparts over more than two months. Our goal remains to conclude a solid treaty for the President’s signature as soon as possible, and we expect that the teams will resume their negotiations in Geneva in mid-January.

IAN KELLY: “I know that there was a telephone conversation today with the political directors from the six countries. Of course, Under Secretary William Burns participated from our end. They discussed the need for unity of the P-5+1 in our approach to the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. They also discussed the way forward on arranging a follow-on meeting to the Geneva meeting, but that’s very much now still in the works. It’s a matter of discussion between Mr. Solana and the Iranian authorities, but nothing’s been set in terms of follow-on –”

State Department October 23 Daily Briefing: U.S., France, and Russia indicate positive response to talks / Iran wants to wait until next week to respond – The international community’s been waiting a long time for Iran to address some real concerns about their intentions – Inspection of Qom on Sunday – Want to see concrete Steps from Iran / International patience is not limitless

Ian Kelly: “we have very intensive negotiations going on. We have a very firm deadline that’s coming up very quickly, a little more than – well, it’s December 5th, so it’s – we’re talking about a month and a half now. So we have very intensive negotiations going on. We do not want to negotiate in public. We are taking the tasking from our two presidents very seriously, the Russian side and the American side.”

The steady entry of new States Parties over the last several years, bringing the CWC close to universal membership (there are currently 188 States Parties), has been most encouraging. We strongly support the efforts of all States Parties, the Director General, and the Technical Secretariat to strengthen contacts with the remaining non-member states.

I would like today to discuss the views of the United States on nuclear disarmament. I will describe our fundamental approach, what we have accomplished in recent years and our current objectives, and some more long-range questions as we consider how to create, in the words of Security Council Resolution 1887, “the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, in accordance with the goals of the NPT”.

Thanks to Ambassador Salander, Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, and Dr. Christian Shoenenberger, Head of the Task Force on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, for hosting this event and for inviting me to speak to you this afternoon on the subject of “Defining Success at the 2010 NPT Review Conference.” With less than seven months before the eighth Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, events like this provide a timely opportunity to bring together the Treaty’s many stakeholders, both governmental and non-governmental, to discuss the issues that we will have before us next May.