Thank you very much, and I thank our witnesses for coming today.
Sometimes I wonder whether we've come very far from the vision that Senator Hubert Humphrey, one of the architects of the non-proliferation treaty, had in 1963 when he presented the treaty before the Senate. It was signed in 1963.
You mentioned a number of areas. The first thing I would certainly agree with is the issue of having the government commit itself to the multilateral diplomacy approach. That is extremely important. It's something we have been known for and we certainly need to continue.
There are a couple of areas I'd like to go through briefly.
First, on the fissile material cut-off treaty, there is a stalemate, as you know, that has existed for a decade. The question is, how do we break that stalemate? We obviously have certain expertise that we can bring to the table, but the United States, among others, certainly has been unwilling, or has refused, I guess, the whole issue of linkage with every issue, whether it's nuclear disarmament or weaponization of space, for example. Are there some creative approaches we can take with like-minded states to try to break that logjam?
The issue of non-state actors is obviously very important in this international climate in terms of the selling of technology and components for nuclear weapons. I read your brief, but I don't know that you necessarily addressed in any detail, but maybe you could for the committee, how we might approach that issue of the role of non-state actors in the international community.
On the whole comprehensive treaty issue with North Korea and Iran, we know, as was mentioned, North Korea has probably up to nine weapons, and yet the six-power talks are going nowhere there. The North Koreans are clearly a bully on the block who no one wants to take on directly, and there doesn't seem to be much encouragement for the North Koreans or the Iranians, given the activities of those who already have weapons. If they're not prepared to follow certain rules, obviously their view is, “Why should we?” Could you address that?
In the international community, we often talk about countries signing onto the non-proliferation treaty for the purpose of getting nuclear expertise. They can withdraw from that at any time and then revert to nuclear weaponry. We have certainly seen that in the past. Could you address that a little more?
And finally, as parliamentarians, we always want to talk about empowerment of parliamentarians--and I congratulate the government on the fact that they're going to help organize the MPI article Vl forum here in September. You may want to indicate to the committee how we, as parliamentarians or the committee, might play a role, because I strongly believe, regardless of party, that we should in fact be playing a role as parliamentarians in that regard.
Sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I had to get them out.