Brown calls for end to nukes

NEW DELHI: In a radical departure from the existing British position, Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke for a nuclear weapon-free world and called on the US and Russia to reduce their stockpiles.

However Brown did not spell out the way forward or whether Britain would be willing to take the initiative and eliminate its own nuclear arsenal. Addressing leaders of Indian and British industry here on Monday, Brown highlighted the threats to world peace posed by nuclear weapons. 

“Facing serious challenges from Iran and North Korea, we must send a powerful signal to all members of the international community that the race for more and bigger stockpiles of nuclear destruction is over.’’

He said the time had also come for the US and Russia to further reduce their stockpiles of nuclear warheads. He called for the stalled fissile material cut-off treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to be taken up urgently.

“And let me say today, Britain is prepared to use our expertise to help determine the requirements for the verifiable elimination of nuclear warheads.

And I pledge that in the run-up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in 2010 we will be at the forefront of the international campaign to accelerate disarmament amongst possessor states … and to ultimately achieve a world this is free from nuclear weapons,’’ Brown said.

Britain is a member of the exclusive club of declared nuclear powers, which includes US, Russia, China and France.

“We certainly welcome Gordon Brown’s statement. He puts the issue of nuclear disarmament on the global agenda. Although if he wants to score a major diplomatic and political point he should set an example and destroy Britian’s nuclear weapons. That would have given Brown an unprecedented levarage to call the shots in the disarmament debate,” says Praful Bidwai, one of India’s leading anti-nuke campaigners.

But even those who have for decades called for a nuclear armed India, like leading analyst K Subrahmanyam, have welcomed Brown’s initiative.

Subrahmanyam also drew attention to the small but influential group in the US that included former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger, George P. Schulz,  William J. Perry and Sam Nunn who were surprisingly now promoting universal disarmament. “There is a change of attitude on nuclear weapons and I welcome this,’’ said Subrahmanyam.

Ironically, the first world leader to promote this idea was an Indian. When prime minister Rajiv Gandhi spoke at a special session of the UN in 1988 calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons, the world just shrugged off his appeal as an idealistic and impractical suggestion.

“Nuclear war will not mean the death of a hundred million people. Or even a thousand million. It will mean the extinction of four thousand million: the end of life as we know it on our planet earth. We come to the United Nations to seek your support. We seek your support to put a stop to this madness,” Rajiv Gandhi had said

Kissinger and the rest of the world gave him short shrift. Today these same people are recalling Rajiv’s speech at the UN to promote the idea of world-wide nuclear elimination. In a signed statement released on January 15 this year, Kissinger, Schultz, Perry and Nunn talked of the dangers of nuclear weapons. Last year too they had made a similar appeal.

Ironically the Congress-led UPA government has abandoned virtually abandoned the doctrine of nuclear disarmament.