‘End nuke weapons, or the end of us’

– The leader of the group that won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday urged nuclear nations to adopt a United Nations treaty banning atomic weapons in order to prevent “the end of us”.

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 and the growing risk of an atomic war.

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.

The treaty is not signed by – and would not apply to – any of the states that already have nuclear arms. Beatrice Fihn, Ican’s executive director, 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 in her speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo.

“The United States chooses freedom over fear. Russia chooses disarmament over destruction. Britain chooses the rule of law over oppression,” she added, before urging France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel to do the same.

Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear weapons, although it neither confirms nor denies it.

“A misconstrued comment or bruised ego, could easily lead to the destruction of entire cities,” she added. “A calculated military escalation could lead to the indiscriminate mass murder of civilians.” –