Nobel laureates warn on N Korea
OSLO : The winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), on Sunday voiced alarm about an “extremely dangerous situation” in North Korea, shortly before receiving the award in Oslo.
“We are seeing right now an extremely dangerous situation that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable,” ICAN head Beatrice Fihn said before the Nobel ceremony. “But if you are worried about Donald Trump having nuclear weapons or Kim Jong-un, you’re probably worried about nuclear weapons because you are recognising that deterrents are not always going to work,” she added.
The US and North Korean leaders “are just humans who have the control to end the world, nobody should have that.”
While receiving the award, Fihn urged nuclear nations to adopt a United Nations treaty banning atomic weapons in order to prevent “the end of us”.
ICAN is a coalition of 468 grassroots non-governmental groups that campaigned for a UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by 122 nations in July. But only three countries have so far ratified the treaty, as against the required 50. The treaty was weakened by the absence of the nine nuclear powers among the signatories.
Fihn urged them to sign the agreement. “It provides a choice. A choice between the two endings: the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us,” she said.
“The United States, choose freedom over fear. Russia, choose disarmament over destruction. Britain, choose the rule of law over oppression.”