Allies to urge Obama remove European nuclear stockpile
Russia renews threat to base missiles in Kaliningrad
European Nato allies are to urge President Barack Obama to remove all remaining US nuclear weapons from European soil, as domestic pressure grows to rid its soil of outdated Cold War-era aerial bombs.
Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway will call "in the coming weeks" for more than 200 American warheads, mostly stocked in Italy and Turkey, to be taken back, a spokesman for Prime Minister Yves Leterme said.
A joint proposal by the five Nato members will demand "that nuclear arms on European soil belonging to other Nato member states are removed," Dominique Dehaene said.
The proposal does not refer to the distinct, and more modern British and French nuclear arsenals.
Former Nato chief Willy Claes and three more senior Belgian political figures urged such a call in yesterday's Belgian press, citing "Obama's pledge to work to eliminate all nuclear weapons".
A statement from Mr Leterme stressed that "Belgium is in favour of a world without nuclear weapons and advocates this position at the heart of Nato", in preparation for a New York conference in May on global nuclear arms non-proliferation efforts. He said an initiative would be launched under a strategic Nato rethink due to be adopted by leaders of Nato countries in Lisbon in November.
Spokesman Mr Dehaene said that plan includes addressing what to do about some 220 aerial atomic bombs held on military bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Turkey. These bombs are considered by military experts to be outdated because they are essentially dropped by pilots.
"The Cold War is over. It's time to adapt our nuclear policy to the new circumstances," wrote Mr Claes, fellow former Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel and former prime ministers Jean-Luc Dehaene and Guy Verhofstadt.
The call, however, coincides with a new threat by Russia to base missiles in its western exclave Kaliningrad, which borders the EU. Moscow in September said it scrapped plans to place short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad after the US shelved a controversial missile shield plan for central Europe. But yesterday Russia warned it could revive plans to base missiles on Nato's doorstep after Romania said it would hold talks with Washington on hosting US missile interceptors and Bulgaria showed an interest in taking part in a US missile shield.
Kaliningrad, which sits on the Baltic coast, is the former German region of East Prussia that was seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War II. The US-Russia reset aimed at repairing relations hurt by a series of crises under the Bush presidency, not least Russia's 2008 war with Georgia. But the reset has been marred by the failure of the countries so far to agree a successor to a Cold War-era nuclear arms reduction treaty that has elapsed, although both sides insist they are close to a deal.