Russian language version of this statement

I am very pleased to be here at this important event on de-alerting nuclear weapons. The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research is a non-governmental organization based in the United States. We work to reduce nuclear dangers by providing scientific and technical assistance and outreach on nuclear issues to the public, policy-makers, and media around the world. We translate and distribute our materials in the main nuclear weapons states, including Russia, France, and China. Since 1996, IEER has published its quarterly newsletter, Energy & Security, in Russian. We also facilitate the international exchange of scholars working on nuclear issues. IEER works closely with the Back From the Brink campaign and helped coordinate this event.

More than ten years after the Cold War, Russia and the United States still maintain thousands of nuclear weapons on high-alert, which increases the potential for accidental nuclear war or nuclear war by miscalculation. This risk can almost entirely be eliminated by de-alerting all nuclear weapons.

The vast majority of people and governments around the world support taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. This was evidenced in the final consensus document at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference last year, in which the five nuclear weapons states agreed to develop concrete measures to further reduce the operational status of their nuclear weapon systems. In the heightened concerns about global security following the September 11^th terrorist attacks in the United States, it is even more imperative that all nuclear weapons are de-alerted.

In two weeks, Presidents Putin and Bush are meeting in Texas to discuss the future of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and possible further reductions of their nuclear arsenals. De-alerting of the remaining nuclear weapons should also be a central issue in this upcoming summit.

I would like to thank Alexander Pikaev and IMEMO for their work on the de-alerting briefing book [De-alerting nuclear weapons in Russia and the US: A path to reducing nuclear dangers] and for organizing this event. IEER has worked with Alexander Pikaev from the beginning of our outreach in Russia and are grateful to him for his assistance. We look forward to further collaboration with Alexander Pikaev and IMEMO.