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Rally held in New York City for world free of nuclear arms

Monday, 27 April 2015 6:37 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 27 April 2015 6:43 AM ]

Demonstrators participate in an anti-nuclear rally in Union Square in New York, April 26, 2015.

Activists from all around the world have taken to the streets in New York City to demand a world free of nuclear weapons as Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference begins in the city.

The activists along with thousands of demonstrators on Sunday called on nuclear-armed countries to do far more toward cutting stockpiles of nukes.

The activists presented eight million petitions to the United Nations Disarmament Chief Angela Kane, who told the crowd that receiving millions of names was “very humbling.”

Kane said she had signed one of the petitions herself when she was in Japan.

Amongst the demonstrators were people from Japan, which is the only country ever hit by the United States atomic bombs in 1945. They were survivors of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

According to the US Strategic Bombing Survey, tens of thousands of people were killed in the attacks. Some 80,000 died in the August 6, 1945 nuclear attack on Hiroshima and 40,000 in the attack on Nagasaki three days later.

Demonstrations held in an anti-nuclear rally in Union Square in New York, April 26, 2015.

“I hope we don’t have to have the NPT five years from now!” 83-year-old Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference takes place every five years by world powers in an attempt to review progress toward eventually achieving total nuclear disarmament.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are expected to speak at the conference on Monday.

The world’s nuclear-armed possessors are the United States, Britain, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

Among the countries, the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China have signed on to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Israel which is the sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, with up to 400 undeclared nuclear warheads, will take part as an observer in the conference.

Tel Aviv rejects global calls to join the NPT and does not allow international inspectors to observe its controversial nuclear program.

SB/AGB

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