ICAN urges US and N. Korea to negotiate

oSlo: A survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and the leader of the group that won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize urged the United States and North Korea to tone down their rhetoric and negotiate together to avoid a nuclear strike.

Tensions have risen markedly in recent months over North Korea’s development, in defiance of repeated rounds of UN sanctions, of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the United States.

The Pentagon has mounted repeated shows of force after North Korean tests.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize by a Nobel committee that cited the spread of nuclear weapons by countries like North Korea and the growing risk of an atomic war.

Setsuko Thurlow, an 85-year-old survivor of the Hiroshima bombing on Aug 6, 1945, and Beatrice Fihn, ICAN’s executive director, will receive the prize together at Oslo City Hall in front of King Harald and Queen Sonja.

“No human being should suffer what we suffered,” Thurlow, who was 13 at the time of the attack and is now an ICAN campaigner, told reporters on Saturday.

“I deeply and strongly urge the leaders of North Korea and the US never to use nuclear weapons ... Negotiate.

“A diplomatic solution is the only solution.”

Fihn added that the risk of a nuclear war had increased over the past year.

— AP A symbol of peace: People standing near a thousand paper cranes in front of the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo. ICAN installed the paper cranes made by children in Hiroshima, ahead of formally receiving the prize.