Over 80 prominent global leaders, including former Prime Ministers, retired Generals, and medical journal editors, call on the leaders of all nine nuclear armed states to “negotiate a timetable for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals, to establish the necessary verification and enforcement provisions and to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons…”
The letter was drafted by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and signatories include heads of medical schools and medical journals as well as faith leaders, politicians and Nobel Laureates. The letter was delivered to the UN on the occasion of the Summit for the Future (Sept 20-23, 2024) and released to the public for the UN International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, September 26th.
The real significance of this letter lies not just in the impressive list of signatures but in the content of the letter itself, which very clearly calls on the nuclear-armed countries to eliminate their arsenals and join the TPNW. “The complete elimination of these weapons is the only reliable means to guarantee that they will never be used, either intentionally or in error,” says the letter, without equivocation.
The letter also calls on these countries to get a move on, because time is running out. The signatories are calling for “significant progress” in negotiations to eliminate all nuclear arsenals by the time of the 80th anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is in August, 2025, less than a year away.
Meanwhile, in the US, the elimination of nuclear weapons is not even on the agenda as an election issue…
See full text of letter and names of signatories in the IPPNW blog: https://peaceandhealthblog.com/2024/09/24/an-urgent-call-to-step-back-from-the-brink-of-nuclear-war/
