Fifty-six former prime ministers, presidents, foreign ministers and defense ministers from 20 NATO countries, plus Japan and South Korea, released an open letter Sunday imploring their current leaders to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the pact negotiated in 2017 that is now just six ratifications shy of the 50 needed to take effect. The letter, released on the eve of the United Nations 75th anniversary commemoration at the annual General Assembly, asserted that the risks of nuclear-weapons use have escalated in recent years “whether by accident, miscalculation or design.”Pointing to the coronavirus pandemic — which U.N. officials have called the greatest challenge in the organization’s history — the letter writers said, “We must not sleepwalk into a crisis of even greater proportions than the one we have experienced this year.”The signers included former prime ministers of Canada, Japan, Italy and Poland; former presidents of Albania, Poland and Slovenia; more than two dozen former foreign ministers; and more than a dozen former defense ministers. Two of the signers are former secretaries-general of NATO: Javier Solana of Spain and Willy Claes of Belgium. Ban Ki-moon, the former secretary-general of the United Nations and a former foreign minister of South Korea, also signed.

Source: New York Times September 21, 2020 00:00 UTC