Open Letter to Presidents Biden and Putin on Nuclear No-First-Use

Posted: 7th June 2021

Please find below an invitation to endorse an Open Letter to US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling on them to use the opportunity of their summit on June 16 to consider adopting policies of No-First-Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons in order to reduce the risks of a nuclear exchange and support the goal of the global elimination of nuclear weapons.

The letter is open for endorsement by legislators, academics, civil society leaders, religious/political leaders and other interested individuals. Click here to endorse. Apologies for cross-posting.

Yours sincerely
UNFOLD ZERO
 

 

Invitation to endorse an Open Letter to Presidents Biden and Putin in advance of their June 16, 2021 Summit

 
Dear Friends and Colleagues,

On June 16, 2021, US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Switzerland in their first Summit. This provides an important opportunity for the leaders to reduce tensions between the two countries, lower the risks of a nuclear exchange, and make commitments to additional concrete measures for nuclear risk-reduction and disarmament.

A key measure they could discuss would be the option of committing to never initiate a nuclear weapons attack, i.e. to adopt no-first-use policies.
 
Following a No First Use global campaign meeting on May 26-27, we have drafted an Open Letter to Presidents Biden and Putin calling on them ‘to declare a joint commitment that your nations will not use nuclear weapons first under any circumstances, and to make this a key step toward fulfilling the UN goal to totally eliminate nuclear weapons from the planet.’ (See below for text of the Open Letter).

We invite you to endorse the letter, as an individual, by June 8 in order for your name to be included when we send the letter to Presidents Biden and Putin on June 9. Click here to submit your endorsement. Note that we will continue to accept endorsements until June 14, after which the Open Letter with the final list of endorsers will be sent to the media.
 
We also encourage supporting statements from civil society organizations to be circulated to media (mainstream and social media) from June 10 and sent to us by June 14. Click here to submit a supporting statement from a civil society organization.

We thank you for your time and your efforts for a more peaceful and secure world.
 
Yours sincerely
 
John Hallam (Australia), People for Nuclear Disarmament
Peter Metz (USA), Massachusetts Peace Action Nuclear Disarmament Working Group
Vanda Proskova (Czech Republic), PragueVision Institute for Sustainable Security
Rob van Riet (Netherlands/UK), World Future Council
Aaron Tovish (Mexico), Zona Libre
Carlo Trezza (Italy), Former Ambassador for Disarmament and Non Proliferation
Alyn Ware (New Zealand/Czech Republic), World Future Council. Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament