“Russia is making a significant contribution to the process of nuclear disarmament. The implementation of our commitments provided in the Nonproliferation Treaty is one of our foreign policy priorities. This is a comprehensive long-term strategy aimed at a balanced and phased reduction of nuclear arsenals that will guarantee equal security for all,” President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev stated in his greeting to the Global Zero Summit participants.

“Our country has chosen to proceed with nuclear disarmament via international legislation. Russia is actively cooperating with the United States in preparing a new, legally binding agreement to replace the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START). We intend to do everything necessary to guarantee the success of these talks and agree on a substantive and viable instrument that will give an additional impetus to the disarmament process,” highlighted President Medvedev. “Today our common objective is to do everything possible to ensure that deadly weapons of mass destruction become a relic of the past.”

President of the PIR Center Vladimir A. Orlov participated in the Global Zero Summit 2010, which was held in Paris, France on February 2-4, 2010. The Global Zero initiative functions under the auspices of the World Security Institute (Washington, D.C.) The initiative calls for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Global Zero Summit brought together 200 international political, military, business, and public leaders for strategy talks on the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons and for the launch of the next phase of a global campaign to build public and political support for this agenda.

The following experts participated in the Summit :Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security; Mr. Michael Douglas, United Nations Messenger of Peace; Her Majesty Queen Noor; Rep. Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Russian State Duma; Mr. Vladimir Pozner, TV Anchor and Journalist; President Ernesto Zedillo, Fmr. President, the United States of Mexico; Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Pavel Zolotarev, Deputy Director, Institute for the United States and Canada Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences; Amb. Alexander Bessmertnykh, Fmr. Foreign Minister, the Soviet Union; Dr. Anatoli Diakov, Director, Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; Col. Gen. (Ret.) Victor Esin, Fmr. Chief of Staff of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Member of the PIR Center Advisory Board; Amb. Vladimir Lukin, Commissioner for Human Rights, and Fmr. Ambassador for the Russian Federation to the United States; Col. (Ret.) Valery Yarynich, Senior Researcher, Institute of USA and Canada Studies; Senator Mikhail Margelov, Senator and Chairman, Committee for Foreign Affairs, Council of Federation, Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, Member of the PIR Center Advisory Board; Col. Gen. (Ret.) Evgeny Maslin, Fmr. Chief of the Main Directorate, Ministry of Defense, Russian Federation, Security Index Editorial Board Member; Dr. Joseph Cirincione, President, the Ploughshares Fund, Member of the PIR Center Advisory Board; Amb. Jayantha Dhanapala, Fmr. Under Secretary General for Disarmament Affairs, the United Nations, Member of the PIR Center Advisory Board; Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Vladimir Dvorkin, Main Researcher, Center of International Security, the Institute for World Economy and International Relations, Member of the PIR Center Advisory Board, etc.

The following topics were discussed during the panels: Global Zero Action Plan, the Road to Global Zero, Extending the Security Umbrella, Internationalizing the Fuel Cycle, Regulating Missile Defenses, Conventional Forces, and Nuclear Postures, Strengthening Nuclear Safeguards and Security, Verifying Nuclear Arms Reductions, U.S.-Russia Leadership Toward Global Zero, the Public Campaign For Global Zero, the Politics of Achieving Global Zero: National and Regional Perspectives, Building an International Commitment to Global Zero.

The Summit speakers were: Her Majesty Queen Noor; Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Fmr. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and Fmr. Secretary of Defense, the United Kingdom; Amb. Richard Burt, Fmr. United States Chief Negotiator, Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START); Secretary General French Foreign Ministry Mr. Pierre Sellal; Mr. Michael Douglas; Senator Mikhail Margelov; Sec. George Shultz, Fmr. Secretary of State, the United States; FM Celso Amorim, Minister of External Relations, Federative Republic of Brazil; Mr. Gareth Evans, Fmr. Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Commonwealth of Australia; Amb. Wolfgang Ischinger, Fmr. Ambassador of Germany to the United Kingdom and the United States; Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Noboru Yamaguchi, Professor, National Defense Academy of Japan; Amb. Marcos de Azambuja, Fmr. Secretary-General, Ministry of Foreign Relations, and Fmr. Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations and the Conference on Disarmament; Mr. Takahiko Ito, Fmr. Commissioner, Atomic Energy Commission of Japan; Amb. Thomas Pickering, Fmr. Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations, Russia, and India; Dr. Bruce Blair, Co-Coordinator, Global Zero;  Col.-Gen. (Ret.) Victor Esin; Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Pan Zhenqiang, Deputy chairman of the China Foundation for International Studies ; Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Satish Nambiar, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, India; Gen. (Ret.) John Sheehan, Fmr. Commander in Chief, United States Atlantic Command ; Dr. Barry Blechman, Co-Founder, Henry L. Stimson Center; Dr. Hans Blix, Fmr. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Sweden, and Fmr. Head, United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission; Amb. Tibor Tóth, Executive Secretary, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, and Fmr. Ambassador of Hungary to the United Nations; Carl Bildt, Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Kingdom of Sweden; Joseph Cirincione; Mr. Lawrence Bender, founder Band Apart Productions; Mr. Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Fmr. Chief of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Department, Central Intelligence Agency; Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher; Rep. Konstantin Kosachev; Dr. Jennifer Simons, President The Simons Foundation; Amb. Shaharyar Khan, Fmr. Foreign Minister, Pakistan; Mr. Ricken Patel, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Avaaz.org; Mian Khurshid Kasuri, Fmr. Foreign Minister, and Fmr. Special Envoy of the Prime Minister, Pakistan; Mr. Yoshimasa Hayashi, Fmr. Minister for Defense, Member of the House of Councillors (LDP) ;  PM Michel Rocard, Fmr. Prime Minister, France; Mr. Sartaj Aziz, Fmr. Foreign Minister, Pakistan; Amb. Max Kampelman, Fmr. Ambassador and Head, United States Delegation to Negotiations with Soviet Union on Nuclear and Space Arms; Amb. Abdul Minty, Deputy Director General of Disarmament, Ambassador and Special Representative on NEPAD, Republic of South Africa; ACM (Ret.) SP Tyagi, Fmr. Chief of the Air Staff, Indian Air Force; Mr. Chen Haosu, Chairman of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries; Mr. Jaswant Singh, Fmr. Minister of: Defense, Foreign Affairs, and Finance, Republic of India; President Ernesto Zedillo and others.

«Nuclear disarmament agenda should not be monopolized by only two countries. So, what could today all the nuclear-weapon states (NWS) do to demonstrate their commitment to the cause of the nuclear disarmament? », Vladimir Orlov asked at the Summit in Paris.

“I suggest four steps, Dr. Orlov continued, each of them could have been formulated as a statement of permanent members of the UN Security Council (in furtherance of the Resolution 1886 and anticipating the NPT Review Conference), later to be repeated by India as a unilateral initiative.

First. NWSs undertake from now on not to increase their nuclear arsenals.

Second. NWSs undertake from now not to deploy their nuclear weapons outside of their national territories.

Third. Nuclear states from now on cancel the development of new, more advanced kinds of nuclear weapons.

Fourth. All nuclear states initiate elaboration of a treaty on prevention of the deployment of the nuclear weapons in outer space».

President of the PIR Center drew attention of the summit participants to two principal issues of the regional security, resolution of which is crucial for the practical achievement of the Nuclear Zero.

According to Vladimir Orlov, the first one is redesign of the security architecture in Europe, including the problem of ratification of the adapted the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty), by all the parties or elaboration of a new treaty meeting today's needs. This work should also be done in a broader context so that discussions take into account the project of the Treaty on European Security, suggested by Russia.

Second, according to the President of PIR Center, an unproportionately low attention is paid in the documents of the Summit to the Middle East, including the issue of Israeli nuclear weapons and creation of a nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East. Such situation is destabilizing and should be properly addressed, concluded Dr. Orlov.

Global Zero initiative is aimed at eliminating nuclear arms by the year of 2030. Thus, the expectations are extremely high. Many participants of the Summit expressed their doubts on the feasibility of this goal.

It is also important to keep in mind that other important nuclear disarmament initiatives appear in the world. One of the most noticeable and balanced is the International Nuclear Security Project initiated by the Nuclear Threat Initiative. PIR Center is also participating in this Project.

Materials of the PIR Center's Project on the Ways Towards Nuclear Disarmament can be found at: www.disarmament.pircenter.org/eng

More information on PIR Center projects in the field of nuclear disarmament can be obtained by phone in Geneva +41 (79) 736-9034, and in Moscow – +7 (495) 987-1915, and also by email: geleskul@pircenter.org.