Norway announces nuclear weapons conference

iCAN Aotearoa New Zealand

21 April 2012

On Tuesday, 17 April, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, announced in the Norwegian parliament that "a conference in Oslo to highlight different aspects of nuclear weapons as a humanitarian problem" is scheduled to take place next spring (northern hemisphere).

This is excellent news, particularly as the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee is currently considering the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (iCAN) Aotearoa New Zealand petition to parliament which calls on the New Zealand government "to actively engage with 'like-minded' governments committed to abolishing nuclear weapons to launch, without delay, an initiative to start the process of negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention - a treaty to prohibit the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat of use, and use of nuclear weapons."

We urge the New Zealand government to now move proactively and join with Norway to lead the process to abolish nuclear weapons.

The International iCAN media release about the announcement is available at http://icanw.no/images/stories/downloads/pr.pdf Information about iCAN Aotearoa New Zealand is available at http://www.icanw.org.nz

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