06116
Feb. 21, 2006

WCC urges North Korea, Iran
to abide by non-proliferation pact

by Stephen Brown
Ecumenical News International
 
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — The World Council of Churches has called on North Korea and Iran to make a “fully verifiable return” to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty  (NPT), while insisting that current nuclear powers have an obligation to work for disarmament.

        “As more states acquire nuclear arms, the risk of nuclear weapons falling into non-state hands increases — just when it is an international imperative to wisely overcome the violence of terrorism,” the WCC’s ninth Assembly warned in a Feb. 20 resolution urging “all states to meet their treaty obligations to reduce and then destroy nuclear arsenals with adequate verification.”

        Three countries that have not signed the pact but are seen as having nuclear arms — India, Israel and Pakistan — are urged by the WCC to join the treaty as non-nuclear states.

        The WCC also said that the five “original nuclear weapons states” — Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States — “must pledge never to be the first to use nuclear weapons, never threaten any use, and remove their weapons from high-alert status and from the territory of non-nuclear states.”

        The call follows an announcement by Iran earlier this month that it had started testing nuclear-fuel equipment and might abandon the non-proliferation treaty, from which North Korea withdrew in 2003.

        In early February, the International Atomic Energy Agency decided to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council because of its disputed nuclear program, which the Islamic republic insisted is for peaceful purposes. North Korea in January 2003 became the first NPT signatory state to withdraw. It has been accused of developing a secret, uranium-based nuclear-weapons program.

        In 2000, governments “made an ‘unequivocal undertaking’ to meet their obligations and eliminate all nuclear weapons under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” the WCC noted. “Yet instead of progress, there is crisis. The five recognized nuclear powers who pledged ‘the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals’ under the NPT are now finding new military and
political roles for nuclear arms instead.”