Austria Calls for Elimination of all Nuclear Weapons in the World

Austria, supported by 159 member states of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), called for a ban on nuclear weapons because of their catastrophic humanitarian effects.

Dzerkalo Tyzhnia reports that this was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, during a speech at the NPT five-year review conference.

 “The only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons will never be used again is through their total elimination,” Kurz told the 191 parties to the treaty. “All states share the responsibility to prevent the use of nuclear weapons.”

Reuters reports that the initiative has virtually no support among the NPT nuclear weapons states and veto-wielding Security Council members, the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, or the four other states presumed to have nuclear weapons: Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea.

As reported by Channel 24, Ukraine is the only country in the world that, on its own initiative, renounced nuclear weapons. After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine inherited the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. It had 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles and 1,500 nuclear warheads along with several hundred tactical nuclear weapons. The fundamental principles of the NPT “to not accept, produce or acquire nuclear weapons” were included in the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine. After disarmament, which lasted several years, the government uses nuclear energy exclusively for peaceful purposes.

Earlier, Russian TV anchor Dmitry Kiselev, in a propagandist show on one of the central channels, said that Russia is the only country, which “is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash.” Later in the documentary “Crimea: Way Back Home,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said that, at the time of the annexation of Crimea, Russian forces were ready to use nuclear weapons. Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk advised the Russian Ministry of Justice to send this film to the Hague Tribunal, as the statements made in it could be interesting for international prosecutors and investigators.