An announcement from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Australia
We're excited to share with you an open letter from former presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and defence ministers in countries allied to nuclear-armed states, in support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Released today, it has been signed by 56 people in 22 countries, including former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and two former Secretary-Generals of NATO, Javier Solana and Willy Claes.
The former leaders and ministers state that their countries, by claiming protection from an ally’s nuclear forces, are “promoting the dangerous and misguided belief that nuclear weapons enhance security” and “perpetuating nuclear dangers” when they should instead be “enabling progress towards a world free of nuclear weapons”. They urge current leaders to “show courage and boldness — and join the treaty”.
You can find the full letter with the list of co-signers on the ICAN website here, and an article about it in the New York Times here.
Please help this letter fly further with the following actions:
Share it with your parliamentary supporters and encourage them to discuss it and table it in parliament.
Send it to your government's foreign ministry.
Send a press release to any media outlets in your country.
Share it on social media.
The co-signers are from Albania, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain and Turkey. They have joined forces in this letter, demonstrating significant high-level support for the treaty within nuclear-allied countries. We hope it will inspire current decision-makers to push harder for the ban.