----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2000 10:17 AM Subject: [STOPNATO] France Renews Attack On U.S. Missile Defense Plan STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=155117 France Renews Attack on U.S. Missile Defense Plan PARIS, Apr 27, 2000 -- (Reuters) France renewed its assault on a controversial U.S. missile defense project on Wednesday, saying it could revive the nuclear arms race. The latest blast from Paris, a troublesome NATO ally of the United States, came as 187 nations are meeting at the United Nations in New York to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. "We fear that the American national missile defense project could indeed result in the resumption of the arms race," foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne Gazeau-Secret told reporters. President Bill Clinton is due to decide later this year whether to go ahead with the deployment of a limited system to intercept missiles fired by so-called "rogue states", although it would breach an Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia. President Jacques Chirac criticized the plan last year but French officials had been less vociferous recently in what Western diplomats interpreted as a realization that the project was likely to go ahead whatever Europe thought about it. Gazeau-Secret said France feared the U.S. project would be taken as a challenge by such acknowledged nuclear powers as Russia and China, which would feel bound to respond. She praised the ABM treaty signed in 1972 which she said had "limited the anti-missile defenses of the United States and the (now-defunct) Soviet Union and established a strategic equilibrium allowing an end to the arms race." Defense Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau, asked why Paris paid little attention to anti-missile defenses, said France's own policy was based on the deterrent capacity of its own nuclear strike force. "We remain convinced that the deterrence doctrine remains the right answer," he said referring to France's capability to retaliate with submarine-or air-launched nuclear weapons in case of attacks against its vital centers. "The end of the Cold War showed that such a doctrine was successful towards the Soviet Union," said Bureau. The two officials unveiled a 111-page document about France's own nuclear weapons policies which, unusually, was published in both French and English. The document sought to emphasize that following France's 1996 decision to end nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, Paris had become a world leader in nuclear and other disarmament. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online and get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb
