Obama to chair UN meeting on nuclear nonproliferation
Updated: Thursday, September 03, 2009
Photographer: US State Department Photo
Security Council
10:00GMT—6:00AM/EST
Washington, 3 September (WashingtonTV)—US President Barack Obama will chair a special United Nations session later this month, as he seeks broad consensus on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, the US ambassador to the UN said on Wednesday.
Susan Rice told reporters in New York that the session “will focus on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly, and not on any particular countries.”
The United States holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council this month, which means it sets the agenda for the 15-seat council, according to the Associated Press.
Rice said that the 24 September meeting will be the first Security Council session to ever be chaired by an American president, and only the fifth with world leaders participating.
“This is an opportunity to build momentum behind what is a very important priority not only for the United States, but indeed for all members of the United Nations,” she told reporters.
Rice said the United States chose nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament as the topic for the session because it views those issues “as one of the principal and most pressing challenges of our time.”
She noted that Obama had focused on the issues in a speech in April in the Czech Republic, in which he pledged to eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.
Sources: US Mission to the United Nations website, Associated Press
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