The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, has welcomed Saturday's decision by the nuclear powers to give a new "unequivocal" commitment to more than 185 countries to scrap their atomic arsenals.
The decision, which did not specify any timetable, came at a review conference in New York of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of arms reduction accords.
The call for such a commitment to scrap nuclear arsenals was at the heart of the Dublin Declaration of June 9th, 1998, which at the initiative of Ireland brought together the New Agenda Coalition of like-minded countries from various regions of the world (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden).
Welcoming the developments, Mr Cowen said: "The NPT, which is the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, has been revitalised today ... Today's developments, along with the recent ratification of START II by the Russian Federation and the promise of early negotiations on a START III augur well for what I hope will be a new era of serious nuclear disarmament negotiations leading to a world free of nuclear weapons."
The UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, said the agreement marked "a significant step forward in humanity's pursuit of a more peaceful world, a world free of nuclear dangers".
The five recognised nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China - agreed, in stronger terms than is usual, to reduce their arsenals during a review of the 1970 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
Under the 30-year-old treaty, the five powers are obliged to move toward disarmament, while all other signatories promise to give up atomic warheads for good.
The conference agreed to further reductions of tactical nuclear weapons, increased transparency by the nuclear powers on reporting information about their nuclear arsenals and reducing the number of warheads on hair-trigger alert.
The agreed document called for diminishing the role of nuclear weapons in national security policies in an effort to minimise their possible use.
Additional reporting: Reuters