John Duncan

OVERCOMING NUCLEAR DANGER

Have just spent a fascinating 24 hours in Rome in the company of President Gorbachev, Secretary Shultz, Senators Nunn and Perry plus other political giants from my early career, discussing how to get to a World Free Of Nuclear Weapons.

Regular readers will know that these former political leaders have been leading a major campaign to re-energise the Nuclear Disarmament debate. Des Browne, the former UK Defence Secretary who gave last year’s major speech on this issue in Geneva (See earlier blogs) represented the British perspective.

The meeting hosted by Italy as the G8 Presidency, was organised by NTI a major US think tank. It was an extraordinary and inspiring experience. The underlying theme from these politicians who oversaw the end of the Cold War was that their work remained unfinished and that the world had seemed to lose its way in recent years. Recent statements by Gordon Brown and Barack Obama , the UK Paper on Lifting the Nuclear Shadow and the Joint US/Russian statement in London showed the tide had perhaps now turned.

My Russian colleague, Anatoly Antonov and I were among the serving diplomats present. We explained how important this campaign had been for those of us “at the negotiating coal face”. We now needed to turn their ideas into reality in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meetings. The next one being in New York in 3 weeks time.  We warned that the challenges ahead were as serious as the issues themselves. We have to overcome not only a decade of despondency, but the negative impact of events Iran and North Korea. Trust and optimism are qualities in short supply in the disarmament community.

So a week that began for me in Geneva with the deadlocked talks on Cluster Munitions in the CCW finished on a high note. These men and women helped us emerge from a dark period of world history when the risk of nuclear conflict was ever present. We can learn much from their example.

Posted at 14:51 17 April 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]