Washington DC
November 10, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The U.S. announced on Friday that it will attend the third Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.
The Conference, set to take place on December 8-9, 2014 in Vienna, Austria, aims to strengthen the global nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regime, highlight the health and environmental dangers of nuclear weapons use, and underscore the urgency for progress on the action plan that emerged from the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT).
“U.S. participation in the Vienna Conference indicates a renewed commitment by President Obama to pursue the goals he set forth in his Prague Agenda to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, including nuclear terrorism,” said the Center and Council’s Executive Director Angela Canterbury, praising the decision.
The U.S. is the first of the “P5” nuclear weapons countries (China, France, Russia, U.K., and U.S.,) to announce participation in the conference. The venue will not be used to negotiate new agreements, but rather to raise awareness about the persistent security threats posed by nuclear weapons and progress made on current commitments under the NPT. The U.S. announcement comes on the heels of a letter to President Obama from the Council and Center and partners, urging participation.
“We are very pleased to see the President’s leadership on this critical global and national security issue. Given today’s threats, the usefulness of nuclear weapons in keeping us secure is dwarfed by the threats to our security posed by the weapons we have today. The president has two years to solidify his legacy of leading our nation and the world to reduce and re-balance the role of nuclear weapons to increase the security of generations to come.”
####The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation is a Washington-based non-profit think tank working to reduce the number of nuclear weapons stockpiled across the globe, increase international nonproliferation programs targeted at preventing the further proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism, redirect U.S. military spending to address 21st century security threat,s and halt the proliferation of biological and chemical weapons. The Center is the (c)(3) cwww.ArmsControlCenter.org
