We'll cut Trident, signals Brown

Published on Thursday 9 July 2009 22:00

GORDON Brown yesterday said Britain was ready to negotiate reductions to its Trident nuclear arsenal, as he responded to Barack Obama's call for a defence summit to be held in Washington next spring.

The Prime Minister said he would outline a framework for a deal next year that would see Britain's nuclear capability reduced, a move that would affect the Trident missiles based at Faslane on the Clyde.

At the G8 summit in Italy, leaders of the world's major economic powers agreed to the US president's proposal for a Washington meeting.

Mr Brown's comments followed America and Russia's agreement to reduce their stockpile of nuclear weapons, in a deal that reflects the thawing of their recent tense relations.

The US and Russia have agreed a "joint understanding" that would see the countries – which between them possess 95 per cent of the world's nuclear firepower – cut the number of warheads to about 1,500 from current levels above 2,200.

The new arrangements to be tabled by Britain over the next few days could see the onus put on states such as Iran and North Korea, which are suspected of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, to prove that they are not doing so.

The Prime Minister stressed that the UK would not abandon its 160-warhead Trident arsenal unilaterally, or scrap plans to replace the fleet of submarines, which act as its platform.

He hailed a "strong" show of solidarity from G8 leaders in Britain's row with Iran over a detained embassy employee, and thanked them for issuing a communiqu demanding that Tehran allow embassies to exercise their functions "without arbitrary restrictions on or intimidation of their staff".

The document also voiced concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions, which Tehran insists are limited to energy, but are widely thought to be directed at developing a weapons capacity.

Mr Brown said: "We pushed for a very strong statement on Iran, and this is a strong statement from the whole of the G8. I am grateful for the solidarity of the other leaders.

"Iran is attempting to build a nuclear weapon. North Korea is attempting to build a nuclear weapon. We have got to show we can deal with this by collective action.

"What we need is collective action by the nuclear weapons powers to say that we are prepared to reduce our nuclear weapons, but we need assurances also that other countries will not proliferate them."

It is not yet clear which states will be invited to the Washington summit, though Mr Brown clearly expects Britain to be there. His offer to put Trident on the table as part of a multilateral arms reduction negotiation was first made in a speech in March.

G8 leaders yesterday also agreed to seek measures to limit global warming to 2C, but failed to seal a deal on reductions in greenhouse gases. The declaration is the first time the US, China and India have all put their names to such a target.