Disarmament

Photo (left to right): Michiko Kodama, Assistant Secretary General of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- & H- Bomb Sufferers' Organizations); Akira Kawasaki, Executive Committee Member, Peace Boat and an international steering committee member of ICAN; Terumi Tanaka, co-chairperson of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- & H- Bomb Sufferers' Organizations); Haruko Moritaki, co-director of Hiroshima Alliance of Nuclear Weapons Abolition (HANWA). Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri | IDN-INPS

Pressure Mounts on Japan to Join the Nuclear Ban Treaty

By Katsuhiro Asagiri

TOKYO (IDN) – Japan is coming under pressure from within to sign and ratify the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty, which acknowledges the "unacceptable suffering" of the hibakusha – survivors of hitherto the first ever atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

122 member nations of the United Nations adopted what is formally known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in July 2017.

Aging survivors – 81.41 on an average as of March 2017 – have deplored the Japanese government's decision to stay out of the TPNW for the reason that joining the Treaty could "result in the distance between nuclear weapons and non-nuclear weapons states being further widened."

Kazakhstan Supports Proposals Discussed by UN Disarmament Commission

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Amid global anxieties about nuclear peril, Kazakhstan has joined representatives of several countries around the world in calling on the international community to work together through inclusive dialogue that takes into account the views of other States.

The general debate in the UN Disarmament Commission (UNDC) on April 2, 2018 also heard delegates expressing frustration over the lack of progress in implementing disarmament obligations by nuclear-weapon States and calling on them to reduce or eliminate their arsenals, while highlighting the three pillars of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT): disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Photo: Western States Legal Foundation Executive Director Jackie Cabasso, second from left, at the press conference at the United Nations on March 28. On her right is John Burroughs, and on her left are: Holger Guessfeld, Gene Seidman and Alyn Ware.

Experts Stress Importance of UN High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – The increasing fragility of international peace and security is accentuating the critical need for persistent dialogue and relentless diplomacy to deter multiple conflicts triggering nuclear confrontation, disarmament experts and campaigners say.

Conflicts related to nuclear weapons, including in Northeast Asia, between the U.S. and NATO on the one hand and Russia on the other, they say, should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy and every effort must be undertaken to make the UN High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament from May 14 to 16, 2018 in New York a success.

Photo: CTBTO Executive Secretary Dr. Lassina Zerbo addressing the UN Conference on Disarmament on 26 February 2018. Credit: Kazakh Mission in Geneva.

Action Needed to Ratify the 1996 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

By Dr Lassina Zerbo

The author is Executive Secretary of CTBTO, Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The following is a slightly abridged and modified text of his address on 26 February to the High-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament, multilateral disarmament negotiating forum where the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in Geneva was negotiated in the 1990s. (Read the original text here.) Dr. Zerbo stressed that "we must take great care to preserve the integrity of the institutions and instruments we have and to build trust in them and around them. This means maintain and securing the NPT and its entire chain of responsibilities – of which the CTBT entry into force is an integral part". – The Editor

Photo: A view in May 2007 from South Korea towards North Korea in the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom. North and South Korean military personnel, as well as a single US soldier, are to be seen. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

UN, EU, Experts Hail Outcome of Inter-Korean Talks, Call For Availing of Peace Opportunities

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN (IDN) – The United Nations and the European Union as well as independent arms control experts have welcomed the results of latest talks between South and North Korea, and called for seizing the opportunities opening up for peace in the region and for reducing international tensions.

The significance of emerging prospects is underlined by the fact that though the Korean War ended in 1953, in the absence of a peace treaty the two Koreas are technically still at war. As The New York Times notes, in the United States where coverage of the armed conflict was censored and its memory decades later is often overshadowed by World War II and the Vietnam War, the Korean War has been called "the Forgotten War".

Photo: The Conference Row in the Joint Security Area of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, looking into South Korea from North Korea. It shows guards on both sides and a group of tourists in the South. Created: 26 July 2012. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Mixed Reactions To Inter-Korean Accord

By Yonhap News Agency

This report was carried by the South Korean news agency on March 6 (local time: 23.38) and is being reproduced to give a glimpse into how the current development on the Korean peninsula is viewed in the Republic of Korea. – The Editor

SEOUL (IDN-INPS) – South Korean political parties on March 6 demonstrated mixed reactions to the results of the high-stakes visit to North Korea by President Moon Jae-in's special envoys, which included an agreement to hold a cross-border summit next month.

Shortly after returning from his two-day visit to Pyongyang, Chung Eui-yong, Moon's chief security advisor and head of the South's 10-member delegation, announced a set of agreements with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Nuclear Deterrence Policy Gathering Steam in India

By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE (IDN) – "Though India is a reluctant nuclear power, nuclear deterrence will continue to play a crucial role in India's national security strategy over the next few decades," says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal, Distinguished Fellow at India's Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

In his recent book 'Sharpening the Arsenal: India's Evolving Nuclear Deterrence Policy', he explains the reason: "Only when India's adversaries are convinced that India has both the necessary political and military will and the hardware to respond to a nuclear strike with punitive retaliation that will inflict unacceptable loss of human life and unprecedented material damage, will they be deterred."

Photo: Ambassador Kairat Umarov, Kazakhstan's Permanent Representative to the UN, signing the Nuclear Ban Treaty on March 2. Credit: Abolition2000

Kazakhstan Signs Ban Treaty After Security Council Debut

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Kazakhstan, known as an active and staunch supporter of a world free of nuclear weapons, became 57th country to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on March 2.

The Treaty, which opened for signature on September 20, 2017, will remain open indefinitely. It will enter into force 90 days after 50 nations have ratified or acceded to it. Until now, five states have ratified the Treaty: Guyana, Holy See and Thailand on September 20, 2017 immediately after signing. They were followed by Mexico on January 16 and Cuba on January 30.

Photo: Dr. Daisaku Ikeda. Credit: Seikyo Shimbun.

Striving to Build a Broader Support for the Nuclear Ban Treaty

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | TOKYO (IDN) – The second session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 NPT Review Conference in April and the UN High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament in May will draw the focus of the international community in the coming weeks as it moves toward paving the way for a nuclear-weapons free world.

Since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted in July 2017, "these will be the first venues for debate and deliberation that will include both the nuclear-weapon and nuclear-dependent states," says eminent Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda, founder and President of Soka Gakkai International (SGI) with 12 million members in 192 countries and regions.

Photo: Commemorating the 51st anniversary of the Treaty of Tlatelolco on 14 February 2018. Credit: OPANAL

From Tlatelolco to the UN Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty

By Jorge Alberto López Lechuga

Jorge Alberto López Lechuga is Research and Communication Officer of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL). The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of OPANAL and its Member States. – The Editor

MEXICO (IDN) – On February 2, the Government of the U.S. published the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which includes the strategy to increase the role of nuclear weapons in national security. The NPR considers the need to double the military budget from 3% to 6.4% in order to modernize the U.S. arsenal. This would mean an investment of 1 trillion USD over the next 30 years. It also states that expanding "flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression", a strategy that will raise "the nuclear threshold".