The Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has marked the global day of action for the abolition of nuclear weapons with a call on nuclear weapons states to reduce the operational readiness of their nuclear weapons systems as a first step towards disarmament.
The global day of action on June 25th was called by the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, ahead of a two-day summit of the five permanent members of the UN security council in Paris to discuss nuclear security issues.
In a letter to the ambassadors to Ireland of China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA, Irish CND urged the five states "to agree immediate steps to lower the operational readiness of their nuclear weapons systems, thereby decreasing the risk of accidental discharge of nuclear weapons and the human and environmental damage consequent to any such discharge due to malfunction or human error."
Irish CND Chairperson, Dr David Hutchinson Edgar, said, "Under the agreement reached at the end of last year's Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, the Nuclear weapons states undertook to take meaningful and measureable steps towards disarmament. We are calling on them to de-alert their deployed nuclear weapons as one such step. Many more steps will need to be taken before the world is free from the menace of nuclear destruction."
