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India aspires for atomic weapons-free world: Ansari

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: India aspires for a non-violent, atomic weapons-free world and believes that the international community should conclude “universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable prohibitions on nuclear weapons” leading to their complete elimination, Vice-President Hamid Ansari said here on Sunday.

Inaugurating the 18th World Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) here, Mr. Ansari said among the actionable and concrete steps towards achieving nuclear disarmament were “negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons and on their destruction,” leading to the global, non-discriminatory and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons with a specified time frame.

The other steps were “reaffirmation of the unequivocal commitment of all nuclear-weapon States to the goal of complete elimination of nuclear weapons and negotiation of a convention on the complete prohibition of the use of threat of use of nuclear weapons.”

He said India, which first proposed the principles for a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1965, refused to sign the NPT when it became clear that instead of addressing the objective of universal and comprehensive non-proliferation, the treaty only “legitimised the continuing possession and multiplication of nuclear stockpiles by those few States possessing them.”

The three-day conference has been organised by the IPPNW and its affiliate, Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD).

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