UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday opened the month-long review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) calling for action to rid the world of nuclear weapons, according to dpa. "The world's people look to you for action," Ban told a packed UN General Assembly with government envoys attending the conference held once every five years to assess progress in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Ban said eliminating nuclear weapons is a possibility, but the UN agenda on disarmament has been "asleep for too long." "Sixty five years later, the world still lives under the nuclear shadow," Ban said referring to the atomic bomb set off by the United States over Hiroshima, Japan in August 1945, which put an end to World War II in the Pacific. Ban said he will travel to Japan this year to mark the 65th anniversary. "How long must we wait to rid ourselves of this threat?" he said in an address opening the conference. "How long will we keep passing the problem to succeeding generations?" Ban proposed a five-point plan to make the NPT conference a success, including a demand for the world's nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, China, France and China - to unequivocably undertake to eliminate their arsenals of nuclear warheads. There are an estimated 23,000 warheads in the arsenals of those five countries and other countries with nuclear capability. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the only head of state attending the NPT review. He was to address the body later Monday, and his country's nuclear programme is sure to be a major focus of the discussions as the United States and its allies are pushing for UN Security Council sanctions to punish the Islamic republic over its nuclear activities. Scores of foreign ministers were also scheduled to deliver their addresses this week.
