The German Social Democrats SPD (who are in the government coalition) have held a conference on 26th, which was called “Peace through Disarmament. International Law and Non-proliferation�. Speakers were Dr. ElBaradei from the IAEA, Kurt Beck (Head of the SPD Party), and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German Foreign Minister.

After Steinmeier’s comments to the journal Spiegel recently, saying more or less directly that a Germany could give a good example to be serious about the nuclear disarmament duty in the NPT, by renouncing from the nuclear sharing with Tornado bombers, let me translate two central sentences of the speech of Kurt Beck at the conference:

“Next year Germany will have the G8 Presidency and in the second half of the year the EU-Presidency. We will press for the topic disarmament to be put on the agenda by Germany’s presidencies.�

Referring to the World Court opinion of 1996, he says: “We have no understanding for single states thinking aloud about using nuclear weapons tactically and supposedly `limited`�

The conference is documented at: http://www.spd.de/servlet/PB/menu/1053429/f1676216-e1678702.html (in German)
English translations of the speeches of: Kurt Beck and Frank-Walter Steinmeier

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The following is a speech given by Kurt Beck, (the Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate) during the conference on "Peace through Disarmament: International Law and Nuclear Non-Proliferation", 26th June 2006 (More)

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The following is a speech made by German Federal Minister Steinmeier at an SPD conference on "Peace through Disarmament: International Law and Nuclear Non-Proliferation", June 26th 2006

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Germany called on Saturday for the world's leading nuclear powers to reduce their atomic arsenals as they press Iran to curb its nuclear program.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- to make concessions in the context of the Iran dispute, Spiegel magazine reported.

(From: Reuters)

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Campagne pour l'arrêt du programme M51 et contre la nouvelle menace de guerre nucléaire.

Campaign to halt the M51 nuclear missile programme, and against the new threat of nuclear war.

Campaign website (en Français/in French): www.nonaumissileM51.org

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 Brussels, Belgium — Twenty-four Greenpeace activists from Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and the UK were arrested this morning after staging a protest at NATO’s Brussels Headquarters. Their demand: removal of the 480 US-owned and controlled nuclear weapons from Europe. The action occurred as NATO Defence Ministers are preparing for a high-level meeting on the future of NATO.

(From: Greenpeace)
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A study led by former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix called Thursday for outlawing nuclear weapons and reviving global cooperation on disarmament including security guarantees to curb the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

(From: The Guardian, AP)
(Read the report: http://www.wmdcommission.org/files/Weapons_of_Terror.pdf)
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