Greenpeace volunteers project peace messages on to the bow of the USS Blue Ridge, command ship of the US 7th Fleet.
"Governments attending the four week conference have failed to
seizethe opportunity of reducing the nuclear threat,
putting their ownnuclear self-interests before the desire for disarmament
," saidGreenpeace International's Disarmament specialist William
Peden at theconference.
"This meeting needed to strengthen the treaty and send a strong
signalon disarmament and on proliferation of nuclear weapons,"
Peden said."It has failed to do that and as a result the world is a
far moredangerous place."
The spectre of nuclear weapons in North Korea and Israel,
USintransigence on disarmament and its imminent threat of a return
tonuclear testing, controversy over Iran, and concerns over
nuclearweapons usable plutonium production programs in Japan and
othercountries reprocessing all played a part in the collective
failure ofthe conference.
“The conference gridlock only emphasises the need to bolster thedisarmament side of the process,”
Peden said. "Unless and until we getrid of all nuclear weapons,
other countries are going to want them -and that's the destructive
dynamic we are witnessing."
So what's next? Heads of state attending the UN Millennium
ReviewSummit in September need to act on the challenge laid down by
UNSecretary General Kofi Annan, in his opening speech to the
conference,to take disarmament seriously.
The proposal by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to
removeUS nuclear weapons from Germany
was a major positive to emerge fromthe conference, and we think
all European countries that host USnuclear weapons should follow
suit.
Let's start with Turkey, which has 90 nuclear weapons
. Borderingon Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Russia, the nuclear
weapons there pose a realrisk to regional security, and ought to be
removed.
72 percent of theTurkish people want Turkey to be nuclear-free
. Why not send a
note tothe Prime Minister asking him to follow the will of his
people? We've written the letter for you, all you need to do is
fill in yourname and address and click send. And with the push of
button,you're a peace activist. Try it now!
Stand up for peace!
Ask the Prime Minister of Turkey to remove nuclear weapons from his country.
Give peace a chance
Help us keep our activists all over the world, and in our Peace Embassy in Turkey, working against nuclear weapons.