Three Nobel Peace Prize laureates campaigning for the abolition of nuclear weapons have joined forces to call on the US and Russian presidents to meet and agree on significant disarmament.
The joint appeal came from the Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors Nihon Hidankyo, which won last year's Nobel Prize; the 2017 laureate
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN); and the 1985 laureate, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
They sent a joint letter to the two leaders, ICAN said, quoted by AFP.
"At this moment of extreme nuclear danger, we urge you to take urgent steps to reduce tensions and engage in meaningful negotiations on nuclear disarmament," they wrote in their letter to US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
The two countries control 90% of the world's nuclear weapons.
The groups said they were prompted to write the letter after Trump's proposal upon his return to power in January that he wanted the world to "denuclearize," and after the Kremlin expressed openness to the idea.
"The current climate surrounding nuclear weapons is the most unstable in decades," they said, warning of potential "catastrophic consequences for all of humanity."
In their letter, the Nobel laureates called on the two leaders to follow the example of their predecessors Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
The then leaders of the US and the USSR met in Iceland in 1986 during the Cold War and agreed on the most significant reduction of their countries' nuclear forces.
"Expanding nuclear capabilities is not a path to security," the groups stressed.
"It only increases the risk that these weapons will be used accidentally or intentionally. The only viable security strategy is one that moves the world away from the brink of nuclear catastrophe and prioritizes disarmament. Nuclear weapons are not an inevitable force of nature that must be endured," they said.
"They were created by human hands and can be destroyed by human hands. All that is needed is political will." | BGNES