PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

Press Release

Media contacts:

John Hallam, GMT+10 (Sydney, Australia),  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  +61 411 854612

Peter Metz, EDT (Massachusetts, USA),  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Phone +1-617-407-2023

Rob van Riet, GMT+1 (London, UK),  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Phone +44 7983 265979

Aaron Tovish, Central Time (Mexico City),  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Phone +52 55 7354 9173 

[From the authors of the ‘Open Letter to Presidents Biden and Putin in advance of their June 16, 2021 Summit’]

Authors of the letter, signed by over 1,200 highly distinguished and deeply committed persons, that went to Presidents Putin and Biden prior to their meeting yesterday have welcomed the reaffirmation of the Reagan-Gorbachev statement of 1985 that 'A Nuclear war Cannot be Won and Must Never be Fought', and the promise of ongoing talks on 'strategic stability'.  

The Reagan-Gorbachev statement, along with the principle of No First Use of nuclear weapons, was central to that letter. 

The talks on 'strategic stability' will hopefully take the world further from the abyss', where it has been hovering with the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight (i.e. nuclear war) for far too long.

We look forward to the promised joint talks, hoping that they will begin soon and have as their overriding goal to bring about a world without nuclear weapons.  We urge that the top priority measure to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation and accidental war be the mutual adoption of No First Use policies, i.e., a “joint commitment that [the United States and Russia] will not use nuclear weapons first under any circumstances.”

In pursuing these promised talks, negotiators must bear in mind that the consequences of large-scale use of nuclear weapons are likely to include the abrupt termination of what we call 'civilisation', and may render large portions of the planet uninhabitable for humans (and many other species) for decades. Human survival itself might hang in the balance. This very perspective is what the Reagan-Gorbachev Joint Statement had in mind.  Yet in discussion and negotiations about 'strategic stability' it is too often lost sight of.  When taken fully into account, the enhanced security afforded by a no-first-use policy is readily apparent.

John Hallam (Australia)
People for Nuclear Disarmament
Peter Metz (USA)
Massachusetts Peace Action Nuclear Disarmament Working Group
Vanda Proskova (Czech Republic)
PragueVision Institute for Sustainable Security
Rob van Riet (Netherlands/UK)
World Future Council

Aaron Tovish (Mexico)
Zona Libre
Carlo Trezza (Italy)
Former Ambassador for Disarmament and Non Proliferation