COMMUNIQUE, 7 February 2006
Just as the IAEA has passed on the Iran nuclear dossier to the UN Security Concil, more than fifty parliamentarians, more than two hundred international and national NGOs from some forty countries, and various personalities including the Mayor of Hiroshima, have written to the US President, the President of Iran and the Israeli Prime Miniuster asking them to resolve the crisis by diplomatic means, ruling out any military action. They call on the powers possessing nuclear weapons not to use them in any circumstance, least of all on the pretext of preventing proliferation or against countries that do not possess them.
The nuclear states that are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty - USA, Russia, UK, France and China - have for decades flouted the undertaking they made to eliminate their own nuclear arsenals (article VI of the NPT). Therefore they are badly placed to insist that other states respect their undertakings and not make nuclear weapons with the technology which they buy from the nuclear states themselves. The Iran Crisis results from this double hypocrisy in which France plays an active part, both by claiming that nuclear weapons are indispensible to her security but not anyone else’s, and by exporting nuclear technologies which enable these arms to be built.
A war against Iran, on top the war in Iraq, could cause huge human losses, ignite the whole Middle East, increase the risks of terrorist reprisals and destabilise the world economy.
In France as in Europe, citizens are invited to mobilise to prevent nuclear weapons from again leading to war, and to impose abolition, i.e. the implementation by all parties concerned of the requirements of international law.
For example, they can sign the International Appeal for a Peaceful Solution to the Iran Crisis which is on the ACDN website:
Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire
31, Rue du Cormier - 17100 - SAINTES (FRANCE)
Réseau « Sortir du nucléaire »
9 rue Dumenge - 69004 - LYON (FRANCE)