US State Department, WASHINGTON: The State Department has provided Congress with an update on U.S. and foreign compliance with various international nonproliferation and arms control agreements.
The report, released August 30, commends Libya and Albania and criticizes North Korea and Iran.
Libya is praised for deciding to junk its programs to make nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, while Albania is commended for finding and agreeing to destroy old stocks of chemical weapons. On the other hand, North Korea and Iran are cited for having clandestine nuclear weapons programs.
The assessments are contained in a legislatively required submission — a kind of periodic report card — titled Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments. It was submitted to Congress August 30.
PURPOSE AND SCOPE
The report provides an assessment of the adherence of the United States and other nations to obligations undertaken in arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament agreements or commitments — including the Missile Technology Control Regime — in which the United States is a participating state, for 2002 and 2003.
It “reflects the importance the administration and the U.S. Congress place upon compliance with” such agreements and commitments, which can “only serve the national security interests of the United States if they are fully complied with.”
The report notes that the post-9/11 world poses a very real threat of weapons of mass destruction being used as weapons of terror, and states that other governments' violations “can present grave threats to U.S. security.”
Therefore the United States emphatically stresses “verifying compliance with, and detecting violations of, such agreements and commitments
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