International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Some of Britain's most influential statesmen including former foreign secretaries and a NATO secretary-general have backed the call by former US secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger for nuclear weapons abolition.

The three former foreign secretaries, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Lord Douglas Hurd and Lord David Owen, and a former NATO secretary-general Lord George Robertson, said that a combination of nuclear proliferation and extremism had brought the world to the brink of a "new and dangerous phase".

They demanded a dramatic reduction of nuclear stockpiles and urged British and European governments to back the anti-nuclear campaign being led by former US secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former defence secretary William Perry and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sam Nunn.

Recognising that as most of the world's nuclear weapons were controlled by the US and Russia, disarmament must begin with them, the statesmen have also called on the nine states yet to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea and the US - to do so.

- The Age, 1 July, 2008.