United Kingdom has 225 nuclear warheads by Zuzana Zelenakova

British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced Wednesday that Britain has a maximum number of 225 nuclear warheads, of which 160 are “operationally available.” "We believe that the time is now right to be more open about the weapons we hold," Hague said in a statement to Parliament. "We judge that this will assist in building a climate of trust between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states and contribute, therefore, to future efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons worldwide." In an attempt to pursue more open and transparent nuclear policy Britain followed the example of the United States. Last month, US President Barack Obama signed the Strategic! Arms Reduction Treaty together with the Russian head of state Dmitry Medvedev during the summit in Prague, which is one of the steps widely interpreted as leading to downgrading the importance of nuclear weapons in US foreign policy. Also, a new Nuclear Posture Review was released in the US stating that the country will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. However, the US authorities were quick to assure everybody that this move would not weaken the country in any way. "I think if you actually read the nuclear posture review, you would make three conclusions. First - we intend to maintain a robust nuclear deterrent. Let no one be mistaken. The United States will defend ourselves, and defend our partners and allies. We intend to sustain that nuclear deterrent by modernizing the existing stockpile. In fact, we have $5 billion in this year's budget going into that very purpose," said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. When it comes to Britain, there is ! still a decision to be made about whether new warheads would b! e develo ped. The US already excluded the possibility and it also announced it had in its stockpile 5,113 warheads.

related story (sgx17408): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100526/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_n...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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