Southeast Asian nations on Sunday urged the world's nuclear powers to sign on to a regional treaty aimed at keeping their corner of the world free of atomic weapons.
Ahead of the Asian security summit, the 10-country Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) said the five nuclear powers that are permanent UN Security Council members should sign a protocol to the treaty.
The call came as Asean approved a plan to strengthen safeguards against proliferation as part of its review of the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone treaty, 10 years after it came into force. "The threats of nuclear weapons within and outside the region remain real," said Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo, whose country is the outgoing chair of the Asean bloc.
The threat is coming from an increase in the number of countries possessing the atom bomb and "more alarmingly from the rise of non-state actors who might gain access to nuclear materials," he said.
Under the treaty, Asean members may not develop or test nuclear weapons and pledge not to allow the storage or transport within their territories of those weapons. But diplomats admit that with some Asean members allowing warships from countries such as the United States to berth in their territories, there has been concern it would be difficult to determine whether any vessel is nuclear armed.
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