Statement on Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones
IPPNW
6th North Asia Regional Meeting
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Released June 22,
2007
As citizens of the world, as doctors and medical
students concerned to prevent nuclear war threats and radiation health risks from
nuclear testing and radioactive waste-dumping, we participants of IPPNW North
Asian Meeting strongly support the recent Six-Party Talks joint statement adopted
on 13 February 2007, the signing of the treaty on establishing the Central Asian
nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ), and the current policy of Mongolia to institutionalize
its single-State NWFZ status.
We are committed to working through NGO networks
for a wider North-East Asian regional peace mechanism to promote multilateral
regional security cooperation between China, DPRK, Japan, Mongolia, Republic of
Korea, Russia and the United States.
As a critical part of this process,
we will work closely with civil society partners, regional forums, and the international
community, to establish an effective Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone
(NEANWFZ). Such a zone, guaranteed by the nuclear powers, would prevent the development
of a suicidal regional nuclear arms race, and offer far greater human security
than reliance on nuclear weapons.
Institutionalizing Mongolia's nuclear-weapon-free
zone status would define clearly the status, including its commitments and those
of nuclear-weapon States, in the form of an international treaty, and provide
legally based security assurances from the nuclear-weapon States.
To strengthen
existing nuclear-weapon-free zones, and promote the establishment of new ones,
particularly in North-East Asia, we have decided to work with fellow civil society
organizations, the United Nations and regional organizations on the following
practical steps and initiatives:
- Undertaking a new Expert´s
Study on NWFZs in all their aspects so as to update the original 1975 UN Study.
This study should examine the role and increase the effectiveness of existing
NWFZs. The study should also examine the conditions and possibilities for establishing
such zones in other regions, including North-East Asia, the Middle East, Central
and Northern Europe, South Asia, the Gulf State region, the Southern Hemisphere,
and single states for whom wider zonal arrangements are currently not feasible
due to their geographic location;
- Convening in the next two years of
an international conference of States party to NWFZs as a follow-up to the successful
2005 Mexico conference. The conference would seek to: strengthen the existing
zones as well as develop support for new NWFZ initiatives, including in North-East
Asia, and foster ways of coordinating and implementing action on NWFZ initiatives
at the United Nations and the 2010 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference;
- Mobilizing support for Costa Rica's initiative to have the idea of
a Nuclear Weapons Convention (for the global elimination of nuclear weapons) put
on the agenda for consideration at NPT Preparatory Meetings and the 2010 NPT Review
Conference itself;
- Organizing a meeting of North-East Asian experts to discuss the possible content of the future NEA-NWFZ as well as ways and means of promoting this issue at the regional and international level.
Contact:
Dr. Katsuko Kataoka, MD,
PhD
IPPNW North Asia Regional Vice President, 2006-2008