“Nuclear risks are on the rise. The chance of nuclear weapons use [is] higher than at any time in my—and many others in this room’s—lifetime,” said Naomi Zoka at a meeting this week of the Preparatory Committee for the Eleventh Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference.
“The path to a world without nuclear weapons lies through the TPNW [Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons],” said Zoka delivering to diplomats from around the world the statement of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
“Nuclear-armed states are launching threats faster than they are test-launching delivery systems, resulting in a less stable, less secure and more dangerous world,” said Zoka at the meeting June 23rd in Geneva, Switzerland. She is a member of Belgium’s Pax Christi Flanders.
“With Russia’s stationing of weapons in Belarus, and the continued U.S. deployment of [nuclear] weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Türkiye, the NPT [Nuclear Anti-Proliferation Treaty] is failing to meet its first principles,” the ICAN statement continued.
The TPNW was adopted in 2017 by the UN General Assembly with 122 nations in favor. It bans the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. Some 163 nations have now either formally signed or ratified the TPNW.
“Let’s eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us,” Secretary-General Guterres has said of the TPNW, a treaty “toward our shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.”
Hellbound and Down 