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Brown: Britain could cut nuclear weapons

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-10 21:45

L'AQUILA, Italy: Prime Minister Gordon Brown says Britain could reduce its nuclear arsenal as part of a global disarmament deal to persuade Tehran and Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Speaking to reporters at the G8 summit in Italy, Brown said the government may reduce its warhead numbers in return for Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea abandoning nuclear programmes.

Related readings:  G8 sets Iran deadline over nuclear  US-Russia nuclear deal welcome  Obama plans nuclear security summit in March  Hopes for nuclear breakthrough on Obama Moscow trip  DPRK vows to enlarge nuclear arsenal

But he stressed that the country had no plans to unilaterally abandon its 160-warhead Trident arsenal or scrap plans to replace the fleet of submarines that act as its platform.

"What you 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," he said

Brown -- who first offered to negotiate on Trident as part of international talks in March -- gave no details of the size of any cut in the British deterrent.

He also said that in future, he would like to see a nuclear policing regime where "the onus will be on the countries that don't have nuclear weapons to prove they don't have nuclear weapons."

Group of Eight leaders meeting at their summit in Italy agreed to US President Barack Obama's proposal that a nuclear security summit should be held in Washington ahead of the planned review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.