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NEWS RELEASES

September 20, 2002 (1:25 p.m. EDT) No. 103

CANADA WELCOMES CUBAN DECISION TO JOIN NUCLEAR

NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY

Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham today welcomed Cuba's announcement that it would accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The announcement was made to the United Nations General Assembly by Cuba's Minister of Foreign Relations, Felipe Perez Roque.

"This is a significant step for Cuba and an important gesture in support of a multilateral, rules-based system governing disarmament and non-proliferation," said Mr. Graham. "Cuba's decision will make it part of a community of 188 states that are members of the NPT. Its accession will bring the NPT, the most widely adhered-to arms control treaty in existence, one state closer to universality. Canada calls on India, Israel and Pakistan, states that have not signed the NPT, to follow Cuba's example and accede to the Treaty as non-nuclear weapon states."

Mr. Perez Roque announced that Cuba would also ratify the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco. Cuba signed this Treaty in 1995.

The NPT is the central instrument in which Canada's nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation policy is rooted. The NPT is the only international treaty that politically and legally commits the nuclear-weapon states (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) to nuclear disarmament and the only global treaty that prohibits the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Promoting universal adherence to the Treaty is a Canadian priority.

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