U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon yesterday called on countries around the world to establish new regional bans on development or possession of nuclear weapons, the Xinhua News Agency reported (see GSN, Aug. 17).
There are now five nuclear weapon-free zones, covering Latin American and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa.
"We are hoping to see progress on this topic, especially in the Middle East," Ban said during a disarmament event in Mexico City.
"Many of the world's 12,000 nuclear weapons are still on hair-trigger alert, threatening the survival of our species," he added.
"We are very pleased that the U.N. Security Council will hold a meeting on Sept. 24 to discuss nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament," Ban said. U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to chair the discussion (see GSN, Aug. 12).
"No nation acting on its own, no matter how powerful, can solve this on its own," according to Ban (Alexander Manda, Xinhua News Agency, Sept. 9).
Obama must take strong action to back his stated goal of global nuclear disarmament, British officials said in Washington yesterday, Agence France-Presse reported.
"We are here really to see whether this is just aspirational or whether there is something real in the Obama agenda. Can he deliver on the process that takes us farther toward a nuclear-free world?" Tony Lloyd, head of the Parliamentary Labor Party, said alongside members of the newly formed Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation.
"Iran could make serious difference to public psychology of this debate," Lloyd said (see related GSN story, today). "If Iran does get nuclear arms, it's quite likely the pressure for proliferation on its neighbors -- on Turkey, on Saudi Arabia, on Egypt -- will increase."
"The nuclear-free world, yes, we would sign up to that as an objective, but we are not starry-eyed about this being quick or easy," added David Lidington, the Conservative Party's shadow foreign affairs minister.
The visitors planned to meet with U.S. lawmakers and administration officials to discuss Washington's stand on nuclear issues, AFP reported. They noted fears that Obama might not find enough support in the Senate for ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which could hurt efforts to promote nonproliferation on the global stage.
"If ... the Americans disengage from this issue, then we will end up in exactly the same position in 5-10 years' time that we are in at the moment," warned former British Defense Secretary Des Browne, the disarmament organization's chairman (Olivia Hampton, Agence France-Presse/Google News, Sept. 9).