BRUSSELS (AFP) – European NATO allies are to urge President Barack Obama to remove all remaining US nuclear weapons from European soil, as domestic pressure grows to rid its soil of outdated Cold War-era aerial bombs.
Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Norway will call “in the coming weeks” for more than 200 American warheads, mostly stocked in Italy and Turkey, to be taken back, a spokesman for Prime Minister Yves Leterme told AFP.
A joint proposal by the five NATO members will demand “that nuclear arms on European soil belonging to other NATO member states are removed,” Dominique Dehaene said.
Only the United States has nuclear arms stored in other NATO member states in Europe, he added. The proposal does not refer to the distinct, and more modern British and French nuclear arsenals.
“It’s a question of launching the debate at the heart of NATO,” Dehaene stressed, underlining it would form part of broader disarmament talks also focused on conventional weapons.
Former NATO chief Willy Claes and three more senior Belgian political figures urged such a call in Friday’s Belgian press, citing “Obama’s pledge to work to eliminate all nuclear weapons.”
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