As G7 Heads meet this week in Hiroshima, over 250 figures from 50 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and the Pacific have endorsed a joint statement released by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) and the European Leadership Network (ELN). Former prime ministers, defence ministers, foreign ministers, senior military figures, diplomats and others warn that nuclear arms control must not be allowed to fall victim to geopolitical competition and issue a call for action.
The following statement calls on Russia and the United States to pursue a successor framework to the nuclear arms reduction treaty, New START, before its expiration in 2026, and for all states to reaffirm commitments not to test nuclear weapons and make concerted efforts toward the entry-into-force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). […]
The world badly needs more nuclear arms control, not less.
As security policy leaders from 50 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and the Pacific, we call on the leaders of Russia, the United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom to ensure that nuclear arms control will not be made yet another victim of geopolitical competition.
These five leaders, in January last year, declared the reduction of strategic risks and the avoidance of war between nuclear-weapon states to be their foremost responsibilities and that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought. In November 2022, G20 leaders (including the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and India) collectively agreed that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.
Yet United States-Russia strategic stability talks are in limbo and the New START treaty, which has played an indispensable role in ensuring reciprocal security, is now in question. As the only existing nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear-armed countries, the treaty’s collapse or expiration without a replacement would threaten a destabilising arms race. Läs uttalandet
Undertecknare från Sverige:
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Dr Hans Blix, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (ELN)
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Ingvar Carlsson, former Prime Minister (ELN)
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Rolf Ekéus, former Chairman of UN Special Commission on Iraq, Chairman of SIPRI, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (ELN)
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Sven Hirdman, former Ambassador to Russia, former Deputy Minister of Defence
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Henrik Salander, former Ambassador for Disarmament, member Swedish Academy of War Sciences (ELN)
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Annika Soder, former state secretary for foreign affairs, Sweden, and chair of the European Institute of Peace