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Two minutes after Hiroshima explosion. Hiroshima, 6/8/45 149442 UN/DPI/M.
Matsushige |
It is now 60 years since the first
session of the UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution in January 1946
pledging to move towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. Today, the
overwhelming majority of both the people and the governments of the world are
demanding the abolition of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, a large number of
nuclear weapons, enough to annihilate the whole of humanity, are still being
stockpiled and deployed.
In particular, the government of the United States, the biggest nuclear
power, declares that it will retain its massive nuclear arsenals into the
foreseeable future. On the grounds of needing to cope with the "dangers
of terrorism and nuclear proliferation", it is continuing to wage
war and even developing plans to use nuclear weapons and build new nuclear
warheads. These actions betray the first UN resolution, as well as the
"unequivocal undertaking" to eliminate their nuclear arsenals,
agreed upon in 2000 by the nuclear weapon states' governments at the NPT
Review Conference. Further, they run counter to the purpose and the basic
principle of the United Nations "to save succeeding generations from
the scourge of war" and to settle international disputes "by
peaceful means"
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Nuclear-weapon States should take seriously the fact
that, to date, almost all countries have committed to renounce the option of
nuclear armament under the NPT regime. Nuclear-weapon States must respond to
such resolute determination of non-nuclear weapon States, which are the
overwhelming majority of the NPT States parties, by demonstrating tangible
progress towards nuclear disarmament.
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