04 February 2009 : AFP
LONDON (AFP)--U.S. President Barack Obama's administration will give a "new impetus" to the debate about nuclear nonproliferation, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Wednesday.
Miliband's comments came as a press report said Obama would hold the most ambitious talks on nuclear weapons reduction for a generation, aiming for the U.S. and Russia to reduce their nuclear stockpiles to 1,000 each.
"We're at a very, very critical moment, but we're also at a moment of opportunity" on the subject of nuclear nonproliferation, Miliband said at a thinktank event in London.
"I suppose that every foreign minister's speech by any foreign minister anywhere in the world at the moment says that the Obama administration creates an opportunity, but in this case it's true."
Miliband said the nuclear weapons debate would "be given new impetus by the Obama administration."
He was speaking at the release of a foreign ministry strategy paper on nuclear nonproliferation during which he outlined a six-step plan to create the conditions for a world free of nuclear weapons.
