A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought – President Obama
Addressing the UN Security Council, yesterday US President Obama said,
This very institution was founded at the dawn of the atomic age, in part because man's capacity to kill had to be contained.
Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city - be it New York or Moscow; Tokyo or Beijing; London or Paris -- could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And it would badly destabilize our security, our economies, and our very way of life.
Once more, the United Nations has a pivotal role to play in preventing this crisis.
Nations with nuclear weapons have the responsibility to move toward disarmament; and those without them have the responsibility to forsake them.
Now, we harbour no illusions about the difficulty of bringing about a world without nuclear weapons. We know there are plenty of cynics, and that there will be setbacks to prove their point.
But there will also be days like today that push us forward -- days that tell a different story. It is the story of a world that understands that no difference or division is worth destroying all that we have built and all that we love.
It is a recognition that can bring people of different nationalities and ethnicities and ideologies together.
He quoted Ronald Reagan
"A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop until all -- we must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the Earth."