
Are Nuclear Talks with Iran Underway Again?
By Kelsey Davenport
The author is Director for Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association (ACA). The following text was published in their P4+1 and Iran Nuclear Deal Alert news digest for June 2023.
WASHINGTON, DC, 15 June 2023 (IDN) — Recent comments from U.S. and Iranian officials suggest that the space for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program may be opening back up after talks broke down in August, but the two sides denied recent reports that an interim nuclear deal is on the table.

The New Cold War between Russia and the West Is Unnecessary
By Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden, 13 June 2023 (IDN) — George Orwell, the author of “Animal Farm” and “1984”, was the first person to use the phrase “Cold War” in a 1945 newspaper article, written just after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He argued that “the surface of the earth is being parcelled off into three great empires, each self-contained and cut off from contact with the outer world, and each ruled, under one disguise or another, by a self-elected oligarchy. He counted the US and Western Europe as one, the Soviet Union as the second and China as the third.

Increasing Nuclear Weapons Spending Decreases Global Security
GENEVA 13 June 2023 (ICAN) — ICAN’s new report “Wasted: 2022 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending” shows nine countries spent $82.9 billion on nuclear weapons, of which the private sector earned at least $29 billion in 2022. The United States spent more than all of the other nuclear armed states combined, $43.7 billion. Russia spent 22% of what the U.S. did, at $9.6 billion, and China spent just over a quarter of the U.S. total, at $11.7 billion.

Spending on Nuclear Arms Reaches a Hefty $83 Billion & Rising
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, 12 June 2023 (IDN) — As geopolitics take a turn for the worse—with Russian nuclear threats in Ukraine, the saber-rattling by North Korea and the increasing political confrontation between the US and China—there are rising investments in the world’s expanding nuclear arsenals.
Global spending on nuclear weapons increased in 2022 for the third year in a row as the nine nuclear-armed states continued to modernize and expand their arsenals.

Universalization of Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty Is Essential
By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | TOKYO, 11 June 2023 (IDN) — Peacebuilder and Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda, who is president of the Tokyo-based Soka Gakkai International (SGI), issued a statement ahead of the meeting of the Group of 7 (G7) countries in Hiroshima May 19-21, calling on the G7 leaders to take bold steps toward resolving the conflict in Ukraine and guarantee the security of all humanity by taking the lead in discussions on pledges of No First Use of nuclear weapons. (P09) ARABIC | GERMAN | ITALIAN | JAPANESE | NORWEGIAN | SPANISH | SWEDISH

Need To Undertake a Comprehensive Study of Nuke-free Zones
Growing importance of NWFZs
Viewpoint by Dr. J. Enkhsaikhan
The writer is Chairman of Blue Banner NGO and Former Permanent Representative of Mongolia to the United Nations
ULAANBAATAR, 5 June 2023 (IDN) — Nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs) are important and practical regional measures of non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWSs) in promoting the goals of nuclear non-proliferation and strengthening confidence among states. (P08) CHINESE | JAPANESE | RUSSIAN

A United Civil Society Push for Spain to Join the TPNW
By ICAN
GENEVA | MADRID, 31 May 2023 (IDN) — Forty-five civil society organisations in Spain have come together to form a coalition with a single mission: to persuade the Spanish government to adhere to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The Alianza por el Desarme Nuclear (Alliance for Nuclear Disarmament), which has the backing of ICAN, was launched in Madrid on 23 May. It will work to raise public awareness of the treaty’s importance and lobby decision-makers to endorse it.

A Nuclear-Free World Begins with Young Leaders
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, 31 May 2023 (IDN) — The United Nations now believes—and perhaps rightly so—that a world free of nuclear weapons should begin primarily with young future leaders.
In pursuing this ambitious goal, the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and the government of Japan are calling on young people to apply for an innovative learning programme that will empower them to make their contribution to a world free of the deadly weapons. (P07) GERMAN | JAPANESE | HINDI

G7 Leaders Falter Over Nuclear Disarmament in Hiroshima
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, 22 May 2023 (IDN) — When leaders of the Group of 7 (G7) countries met in Hiroshima May 19-21, one of the issues on the agenda was nuclear disarmament.
The venue of the summit was symbolically stark because the US atomic bombings in 1945 killed over 226,000 people in the twin Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the heaviest toll in Hiroshima.
But the seven leaders—from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, plus the European Union (EU)—failed to produce anything singularly significant towards “a world without nuclear weapons”. (P 06) ARABIC | CHINESE | JAPANESE | RUSSIAN

The Right to Life: A Missing Perspective on Nuclear Arms
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, 21 May 2023 (IDN) — The Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP) has made a new submission to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in advance of its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Russian Federation.
Currently, the tentative schedule of the UPR Working Group, with Russia on its agenda, is 13 November, with the adoption of the final report on 17 November.
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