Ban outlines hopes for disarmament ahead of global review meeting at UN
(April 29, 2010) The Earth’s very future leaves no alternative but to pursue nuclear
disarmament, United Nation’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday, as
he emphasized that the UN is destined to lead global efforts on nuclear disarmament
and non-proliferation. In an opinion column published days before the start of the
periodic review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to be held at UN Headquarters
in New York. Ban wrote that “the United Nations stands today at a new ground
zero – a ‘ground zero’ for global disarmament, no longer a place of dread but of hope.”
“Those who stand with us share the vision of a nuclear-free world. If ever there were
a time for the world’s people to demand change, to demand action beyond the cautious
half measures of the past, it is now,” he wrote in the International Herald Tribune.Ban
added that the UN “is the world’s sole universally accepted arena for debate and concord”
and, along with the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), serves as the forum where the world can come together.