U.S. Wants Pact to Curb Nuclear Arms

The United States proposed a treaty Thursday that it said would curb proliferation of nuclear weapons and improve the world’s leverage against nations such as Iran and North Korea by banning production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.

Stephen Rademaker, acting U.S. assistant secretary of State for arms control, told the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament that it should aim to approve a treaty by September.

He said current measures to prevent terrorists and governments from developing weapons of mass destruction might be insufficient “in the case of governments that are absolutely determined to acquire such weapons.”

The proposal contains no verification measures, and stockpiles of fissile material would not be affected.

In Washington, Wade Boese, research director at the private Arms Control Assn., said the United States, Russia, France and Britain already had officially declared that they had stopped production of nuclear weapons and that China was understood to have done so.