The United States is campaigning hard against a proposed UN General Assembly resolution banning nuclear weapons, pressuring treaty allies like South Korea, Japan and NATO members to vote against the resolution, a new report said.

The resolution, led by Austria, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, calls for the formal launch of negotiations on a nuclear ban in 2017. The UN General Assembly is expected to vote on the resolution as early as next week and proponents expect it to pass easily, according to the Foreign Policy magazine.

But the US is against the resolution, arguing that the increasing belligerence of China and Russia, as well as the advancing pace of North Korea's nuclear weapons development, make it untenable for the US and its allies to support such a far-reaching commitment to scrap their nukes, the report said.

"Washington has pressured treaty allies, including Japan and South Korea, and fellow NATO members Norway and the Netherlands, to vote against the resolution," the report said.

It also quoted an unidentified senior European diplomat as saying that Washington has warned countries considering voting in favor of the resolution that "a ban could jeopardize defense arrangements with allies around the globe."

Opposition to the ban runs counter to President Barack Obama's initiative for a nuclear-free world, it said. US officials were quoted as arguing that the proposed ban would do nothing to further global disarmament because it wouldn't include the nuclear powers. (Yonhap)