The very useful Reaching Critical Will newsletter (a project of the Women’s international league for Peace and Freedom) is reporting that “During the 25 January plenary [of the Conference on Disamament in Geneva], Russian Ambassador Valery Loshchinin announced that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be visiting the CD in February to submit a proposal for a treaty to prevent the weaponization of outer space, the elements of which were ‘proposed by Russia and China together with a group of co-sponsors back in June 2002’. Loshchinin noted it would ‘constitute yet another multilateral measure in the field of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and thus would be a real contribution to strengthening the NPT regime’. The story was picked up by Reuters, in an article that explained the proposal has been circulated to some senior diplomats. Donald Mahley, acting US deputy assistant secretary for threat reduction, reportedly said, ‘We see nothing in the new proposal to change the current U.S. position…. Additional binding arms control agreements are simply not a viable tool for enhancing the long-term space security interests of the United States or its allies’. While the proposals is not yet available to the public, it is said to be based on previous joint statements and working papers made by Russia and China in the CD”. For the texts, see the Reaching Critical Will CD archives here.