Top Vatican diplomat challenges UN members to take real steps toward nuclear disarmament

September 27, 2013

The world’s nuclear powers are inhibiting efforts to stop proliferation of nuclear weapons by modernizing their own arsenals, the Vatican’s top foreign-policy official told a UN meeting on September 26.

Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, reminded participants in a session on nuclear disarmament that the Non-Proliferation Treaty requires states already holding nuclear arms “to make ‘good faith’ efforts to negotiation the elimination of nuclear weapons.” There is no evidence that such negotiation is underway, he suggested.

“Can we say there is 'good faith' when modernization programs of the nuclear-weapons states continue?” the archbishop asked. He challenged the UN members “to address in a systematic and coherent manner the legal, political and technical requisites for a world free from nuclear arms.”

 

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Further information:

• Co-operation and Responsibility for a Future without Nuclear Weapons (VIS)