US and Japan seek UN resolution banning nuclear weapons in outer space

US United Nations ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP)

The United States and Japan are sponsoring a UN Security Council resolution calling on all nations not to deploy or develop nuclear weapons in space, the US ambassador has announced.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a UN Security Council meeting on Monday that “any placement of nuclear weapons into orbit around the Earth would be unprecedented, dangerous, and unacceptable”.