IDPD demands India to join treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons as follow up its statement in UNO favouring complete nuclear disarmament    

Ludhiana: The Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has said that India’s statement at the UN that it is committed to total elimination of nuclear weapons and reaffirmation of no first use of nuclear weapons and further commitment to nuclear disarmament through a step-by-step process under written by a universal commitment and an agreed multilateral framework is a welcome gesture. The IDPD has said that time is now to follow it up in practice. 

Dr Arun Mitra -  Co President International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and senior Vice President IDPD, Dr S S Soodan -  President IDPD and Dr Shakeel Ur Rhman -  General Secretary IDPD said that the UN General Assembly has already passed a multilateral treaty, the “Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)” in 2017. For this the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) was awarded Nobel Peace Prize. This treaty prohibits the development, research, use, trade, transfer of technology related to nuclear weapons. It is time India should sign this treaty and ratify in the Parliament. This will show real commitment of our country towards the goal of nuclear weapons elimination.

This should be followed up by negotiating with other nuclear weapons possessing countries to join the treaty. India has a long history of propagation of peace and disarmament. The Non Aligned Movement (NAM), founded by the efforts of Jawahar Lal Nehru in association with Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia  and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt has played a significant role for peace and disarmament in the past. Rajiv Gandhi action plan for nuclear disarmament is well acknowledged worldwide. It is time the present government carries these forward and join the multilateral Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons. India taking lead in signing and ratifying the TPNW will give a strong signal to the nuclear weapons countries and strengthen our negotiations to impress upon to join this treaty and make the world free of nuclear weapons. It is worth mentioning here that Bangladesh has already ratified the treaty and Nepal has signed it. Already 46 countries have ratified the treaty with only 4 countries remaining to make the number 50 for its entry into force.