Strategic Trust-Building

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said that it is more imperative than ever to make nuclear disarmament a reality given the twin economic and financial crises the world is currently facing.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged nuclear powers to dismantle their atomic arsenals in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“Nuclear weapons produce horrific, indiscriminate effects. Even when not used, they pose great risks,” said Ban in a Friday conference at the East-West Institute. “Accidents could happen any time. The manufacture of nuclear weapons can harm public health and the environment,” he added. Nuclear-armed states, which include the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China, have yet to fulfill their NPT obligations and abolish their warhead arsenals.

Emphasising that the financial crisis has triggered the need for an international cooperation to tackle global issues, United Nations has asked the nuclear weapon States, including India, to take the advantage of the atmosphere to revitalise the world disarmament agenda.

In his address to East-West Institute, an independent international body focusing on security issues, on Friday Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the N-weapon States to move towards total elimination of nuclear weapons.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said that it is more imperative than ever to make nuclear disarmament a reality given the twin economic and financial crises the world is currently facing.

 "The costs and risks of [disarmament's] alternatives never get the attention they deserve," Mr. Ban said in his address to the East-West Institute in New York. "But consider the tremendous opportunity cost of huge military budgets. Consider the vast resources that are consumed by the endless pursuit of military superiority."

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday presented a five-point proposal aimed at securing a world free of nuclear weapons.

"A world free of nuclear weapons would be a global public good of the highest order," Ban told a panel discussion at the United Nations headquarters in New York on nuclear disarmament. He lamented that so far nuclear disarmament "has remained only an aspiration, rather than a reality."

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on governments to start negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention as part of a five point plan to eliminate the risks from nuclear weapons.

In an address to a conference organised in the United Nations by the East-West Institute , Ban Ki-moon called for ‘the nuclear-weapon States, to fulfil their obligation under the [nuclear Non-Proliferation] Treaty’ by pursuing ‘a framework of separate, mutually reinforcing instruments. Or they could consider negotiating a nuclear-weapons convention, backed by a strong system of verification, as has long been proposed at the United Nations.” Ban Ki-Moon informed the conference that “Upon the request of Costa Rica and Malaysia, I have circulated to all United Nations Member States a draft of such a convention, which offers a good point of departure.”

Acknowledging that obstacles to nuclear disarmament are daunting, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Friday said that it is more imperative than ever to make it a reality given the twin economic and financial crises the world is currently facing.

 “The costs and risks of [disarmament’s] alternatives never get the attention they deserve,” Ban said in his address to the East-West Institute in New York. “But consider the tremendous opportunity cost of huge military budgets.Consider the vast resources that are consumed by the endless pursuit of military superiority.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged nuclear powers to dismantle their atomic arsenals in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"Nuclear weapons produce horrific, indiscriminate effects. Even when not used, they pose great risks," said Ban in a Friday conference at the East-West Institute

John Mroz, president of the EastWest Institute, said on Friday it was time to “seize this (auspicious) moment”, and take dramatic action to reduce weapons of mass destruction, as a major arms reduction treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation is ending and a leadership change in Washington is in sight.

He was speaking at a joint press conference at the UN to launch an initiative designed by the EastWest Institute, an independent international body focussing on security issues to break the logjam in global efforts to control and reduce stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.