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IRELAND HAS BACKED a UN treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons, despite objections to the treaty from Nato.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons during a ceremony at the UN in New York earlier today.
Backed by 112 countries, the treaty prohibits involved states from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, possessing or stockpiling nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
The treaty was led by Ireland, Austria, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa, on the foot of years of talks between UN members and civil society groups.
“Ireland is proud to have played a leadership role.. in negotiating this ground-breaking treaty, which represents the successful outcome of the first multilateral disarmament negotiations in over 20 years,” Coveney said in New York today.
I am happy that today, finally, the international community is taking this important step in implementing the NPT’s disarmament commitments – there is no place for weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century.
In a statement today, the Department of Foreign Affairs said that nuclear disarmament has been a priority for Ireland from the outset of our membership of the UN.
It said that the content of the new treaty is ground-breaking due to its commitment to humanitarianism, disarmament education, and its recognition of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.
However, Nato members, which includes most EU countries, condemned the treaty.
In a statement issued shortly after today’s signing, Nato said:
Seeking to ban nuclear weapons through a treaty that will not engage any state actually possessing nuclear weapons will not be effective, will not reduce nuclear arsenals, and will neither enhance any country’s security, nor international peace and stability.
In a stark contrast to Ireland’s stance, Nato said that the ban treaty is at odds with the existing nonproliferation and disarmament architecture.
“The ban treaty, in our view, disregards the realities of the increasingly challenging international security environment,” Nato said.
“At a time when the world needs to remain united in the face of growing threats, in particular, the grave threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear programme, the treaty fails to take into account these urgent security challenges.”
Ireland is one of 190 countries attending this week’s general assembly. Coveney is due to address the assembly on Saturday.
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The treaty is about as useful as a packet of vegetarian burgers in Brian Cowens fridge.
@Liam Doyle: Yup nothing like a symbolic victory that really resonates through the ages…..
@Dj: agreed
@Dj: about as useful as an aerial photograph of a bacon sandwich, he should attend to problems at home and stop grandstanding
@Dj: It might not be useful, but that is due to the countries who didn’t sign it, not the ones who did. It enshrines Ireland’s stance on the matter.
@Dj: It’s a start, gets the conversation going and a journey of a thousand miles begins with a few steps.
Nuclear weapons are a true obscenity. They are weapons of potential mass indiscriminate murder of human beings.
Respect to Ireland on the position it adopted.
@Fiona deFreyne: <——- thanks for your official statment
@Fiona deFreyne: God you’re about as boring and insufferable as Tony Daly. You guys related?
@Fiona deFreyne:
Fiona, can we club together and send you to North Korea to have a chat with yer man?
@Emmet Dillane: A background in Basketball would be an advantage .
@Fiona deFreyne: Tony, all weapons of mass destruction are obscene. For example
in the 1950s the US dropped more ordnance on NK than Japan got in WW2. The US destroyed 78 cities and thousands of villages using mainly the new wonder weapon of napalm and roasted somewhere between 1-2 million people although the figures are complicated but the destruction is well documented even if nobody in the US has ever heard about it. Japan got off lightly. I think there was a piece in the IT today about it too. My own research years ago turned my stomach.
@Liam flag: Fiona, Tony…and it needs another one to be the holier than thou trinity. Its father, daughter and holy indiscernible.
@Emmet Dillane: I hear that Elton John is touring Australia and the far East at the moment – the original ‘rocket man’.
@Fiona deFreyne: Red mercury fusion bombs that kill life but keep the infrastructure in place???
‘Ireland is proud to have played a leadership role’
This Coveney guy eh?
@Emmet Dillane: Yeah that’s very true Emmet, Ireland will toe the UN line when it comes to certain issues – but not abortion, eh?
So just like North Korea, America will be facing trade sanctions for working on nuclear armaments now Simon. Will you be leading that charge Simon??
@Kerry Blake: the treaty doesn’t work like that
Fair play to them , but it won’t make a jot of difference to countries who already have them .
Hilarious.
Fair play Simon Your role is critical to world peace. But it’s not only country’s we need to thwart from attending nuclear weapons. Ireland needs to be leading the way in stopping terrorists organisations like the Muslim brotherhood Whose members might attempt to acquire one. No doubt our intelligence department are up to speed.
What reason could the journal have for closing comments about jobstown trials being dropped? Pathetic.
@Seth Cheffetz: Its explained at the end of the article.
@Seth Cheffetz:
Pathetic policy, particularly when there’s an open comments section on a murder case when the suspect has already been charged.
@Seth Cheffetz: what’s the difference between our media and North Korea, nothing.
@Honeybadger197:
‘Formalities’
@Pat Troy: I never thought of it, but yeah the Irish media is exactly like North Korea in every way. Especially the way north Korea stops comments on articles, and the way the journal kills the families of defectors. So similar.
@Pat Troy: The freedom of the press index by freedom house should give you a fair idea.
There will never be world peace without a proper deterrent. Placing ones faith in human nature is a recipe for disaster.
@Emmet Dillane: I agree, Nuclear weapons are a great deterrent to war. Without them, it wouldn’t have been called the cold war, it would be called ww3
Ban the bomb and then talk to North Korea? No thanks.
It will take years for Ireland to decommision its nuclear weapons lol
It is good that Ireland is not following the EU/ NATO line and making its own mind up on this issue.
I’m so relieved, thank you Simon thank you
Big bloody deal….the world’s shivering in their shoes.
Poor old Coveney – the emblem of failure rewarded.
“Despite boycott from NATO”, why would their policy matter a damn for us given we’re not members, or as with everything in Ireland are we also expected to copy and paste defence and foreign policy positions from others too. Heaven forbid we come up with our own position.
‘Ireland backs UN Treaty’………Kim young dung will be crapping himself now!
LOL..As if countries around the world care what our country has to say..! Don’t makd me laugh..!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zangger_Committee
That is funny as there is the Zangger agreement Ireland signed, what happened to that?
@Alois Irlmaier: haha left hand doesn’t know what the rights doing…..
no change there then…
Let’s hope the fallout from any nuclear incident pays attention to this and doesn’t fall on Ireland.
have your say