International

SP Member of Parliament Krista van Velzen is urging Minister for Foreign Affairs Ben Bot to bring pressure to bear on the American government to dismantle W76 nuclear warheads as quickly as possible. Stories in a number of newspapers including The New York Times state that these Trident missile warheads could be “unstable in action”. Yet these weapons are deployed on submarines throughout the world.

Nuclear technicians are no longer completely confident of the reliability of the Trident W76 warheads. For this reason, the American government has decided to establish a modernisation programme for the weapon. Ms Van Velzen said, “I'm worried that this modernisation programme will lead to new nuclear weapons. The Dutch government should include this weapon of mass destruction in the disarmament process. This would be a sensible contribution to next month's Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference.”