‘Ratify UN Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons’ -FOSDA Urges Gov’t
The Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) has called on government to take urgent steps to ratify the United Nations Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as soon as possible as part of Ghana’s long standing commitment to global peace and security.
This call by FOSDA was contained in aPress Release signed by its Acting Executive Director, Mrs Theodora Williams Anti, and copied to www.thenewindpendentonline.com
The Release indicated that Ghana’s ratification of the TPNW is very crucial now since the country is the current Chair of ECOWAS and a member of the UN security council.
Adding that ” This will send a powerful signal that the threat of nuclear weapons is unacceptable and that nuclear war can not be won and must never be fought”.
“FOSDA is deeply concerned about threats of the use of Nuclear Weapons in the on going Russian invasion of Ukraine”, it lamented.
And noted that “the Nuclear Weapons did not deter the conflict in Ukraine nor will it help to resolve it.
In the hands of any state, these weapons pose an unacceptable threat to all of humanity, risking a catastrophe widespread harm to civilian populations as well as radiological and climatic impacts that would reverberate across national boundaries”, FOSDA warned.
Given the heightened risk of nuclear war in recent times, “we believe that it is more important now than ever before for Ghana to join other countries around the world that have rectified the treaty to advance disarmament.
It is for this reason that FOSDA urges government to ratify the Treaty on The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) without further delay”, it concluded.
Since the TPNW entered into force on 22nd January 2021, following ratification by 50 states, a total of 84 states have ratified the treaty globally. Also out of 29 African states that signed the TPNW, 11 have ratified it.
In July 2021, FOSDA in partnership with the Ghana National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons, with the support of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), organized a multi- stakeholder meeting in Accra which facilitated the development of a road map to help Ghana speed up ratification of the Treaty which Ghana had signed in 2017.
FOSDA therefore calls on government to consider implementing the recommendation therein as a commitment to global peace and security.
Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com
