{"id":14981,"date":"2019-01-31T13:56:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T18:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=14981"},"modified":"2019-12-21T13:15:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T18:15:35","slug":"mayors-and-parliamentarians-call-on-russia-and-the-u-s-to-preserve-the-inf-treaty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=14981","title":{"rendered":"Mayors and parliamentarians call on Russia and the U.S. to preserve the INF Treaty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

.. DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION ..<\/p>\n

A press release from the Basel Peace Office<\/a><\/p>\n

Mayors, parliamentarians, policy experts and civil society representatives from forty countries \u2013 mostly Europe and North America \u2013 yesterday [January 29] sent an open letter, the \u00a0Basel Appeal for Disarmament and Sustainable Security<\/a>, to Presidents Putin and Trump and to the leaders of the Russian and US legislatures, calling on them to preserve the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, prevent a new nuclear arms race in Europe and undertake measures to reduce the risk of a nuclear conflict and support global nuclear disarmament. (Appeal also available in French<\/a>, German<\/a>, Russian<\/a> and Spanish<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

The INF Treaty is an historic agreement reached in 1987 between the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers, and to utilize extensive on-site inspections for verification of the agreement.<\/p>\n

Following President Trump\u2019s 20 October, 2018 announcement of his intent to withdraw the United States from the INF Treaty, the State Department has signaled that the US will suspend implementation of the treaty beginning 2 February 2019 and commence the six-month withdrawal process. If the Treaty is dissolved it would further stimulate the current nuclear arms race. In particular, it would open the door for intermediate-range, ground-based nuclear-armed missiles returning to Europe and for US deployment of such missiles in Asia.<\/p>\n

\u2018We are extremely concerned about the deteriorating security environment in Europe and internationally which led the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to last week re-set the Doomsday Clock at 2 Minutes to Midnight,\u2019 says\u00a0Christine Muttonen\u00a0(Austria), Co-President of\u00a0Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Conflicts over the INF Treaty should be resolved through the Treaty, not by abandoning it. And other conflicts should be resolved through diplomacy and common security mechanisms such as the United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),\u2019\u00a0said Ms Muttonen, who recently served as the President of the\u00a0OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.\u00a0\u00a0\u2018They cannot be resolved by elevating nuclear threats and ratchetting up the arms race.\u2019<\/p>\n

(continued in right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Questions for this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

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How can parliamentarians promote a culture of peace?<\/a><\/p>\n

How can culture of peace be developed at the muniipal level?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(continued from left column)<\/p>\n

\u2018Mayors and parliamentarians, especially those of us from Europe, will not sit idly on the side while the US and Russia erode our security,\u2019 said\u00a0Thore Vestby\u00a0(Norway), Vice-President of\u00a0Mayors for Peace\u00a0and a former member of the Norwegian parliament. \u2018Cities and parliaments are therefore taking action to support nuclear arms control treaties such as the INF and START treaties, promote additional measures such as no-first-use and the new \u00a0Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons<\/a>, and to put an end to city and state investments in nuclear weapons corporations.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Legislators in nuclear armed States have a specific role to prevent authorization and funding for new more sophisticated and usable nuclear weapons that increase the risk of destruction of humanity by accident, miscalculation or intent,\u2019\u00a0said\u00a0Paul Quiles\u00a0(France), Mayor of Cordes sur Ciel, President of\u00a0Initiatives pour le D\u00e9sarmement Nucl\u00e9aire, and Former Defence Minister of France.<\/p>\n

\u2018The fact that the President of the\u00a0US Conference of Mayors\u00a0is among 18 US mayors who endorsed on short notice is a significant indicator that \u2018Main Street USA\u2019 opposes the Administration\u2019s destabilizing and expensive nuclear weapons program and supports proactive efforts to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world\u2019\u2019\u00a0said\u00a0Frank Cownie,\u00a0Mayor of Des Moines, Iowa and Vice-President of Mayors for Peace.<\/p>\n

\u2018We do not want to see the dark days of Cold War conflagrations of the 1980s return to Europe. All effort is required to maintain a productive nuclear weapons disarmament regime so that we don\u2019t see the return of nuclear weapons across the continent,” \u00a0said\u00a0Councillor David Blackburn,\u00a0Chair of UK & Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities.\u00a0\u2018I urge the United States and Russia to go back to the diplomatic table and not seek to build a new generation of dangerous nuclear weapons\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Nuclear weapons and climate change pose an existential threat to current and future generations,\u2019 says Dr\u00a0Andreas Nidecker MD\u00a0(Switzerland), President of the\u00a0Basel Peace Office. \u2018The massive amount of spending in nuclear weapons \u2013 over $100 billion per year \u2013 should instead be spent in areas which increase our security \u2013 such as diplomacy, climate protection and the Sustainable Development Goals.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Diplomacy is starting to work on the Korean peninsula with North and South building cultural, sporting and other contacts despite their political differences,\u2019 said\u00a0Alyn Ware\u00a0(Czech Republic), PNND Global Coordinator and Member of the\u00a0World Future Council.\u00a0\u2018We give full support to the Korean peace and denuclearization process and we call on US, NATO and Russia to follow a similar diplomatic approach with regard to their conflicts, and to help achieve global nuclear disarmament.\u2019
\n\u00a0
\nBackground<\/p>\n

Renew Nuclear Arms Control, Don\u2019t Destroy It<\/a>. By Andrew Lichterman and John Burroughs<\/p>\n

Who lost the INF Treaty?<\/a>\u00a0by Pavel Podvig, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists;<\/p>\n

Parliamentary action to preserve the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty<\/a>,\u00a0PNND.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

.. DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION .. A press release from the Basel Peace Office Mayors, parliamentarians, policy experts and civil society representatives from forty countries \u2013 mostly Europe and North America \u2013 yesterday [January 29] sent an open letter, the \u00a0Basel Appeal for Disarmament and Sustainable Security, to Presidents Putin and Trump and to the leaders of … Continue reading Mayors and parliamentarians call on Russia and the U.S. to preserve the INF Treaty<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,76],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-14981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democracy","category-global","tag-global"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}