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G-7 Lowers Voice on Nuclear Disarmament
May 2017
By Alicia Sanders-Zakre
Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations, in an April 11 statement following their meeting in Italy, softened previous backing for nuclear disarmament and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). They made only brief reference to nuclear disarmament with a call for “an inclusive step-by-step, progressive approach . . . to create conditions that could allow a world without nuclear weapons.” In contrast, the foreign ministers referenced nuclear disarmament repeatedly in an April 2016 declaration in Hiroshima, Japan, acknowledging the suffering of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and committing the G-7 to be “persistent and active advocates of continued reductions in nuclear weapons globally.” Their endorsement of the CTBT was also weaker this year, noting the CTBT’s “potential contribution” to nuclear disarmament and encouraging states to complete the treaty-related International Monitoring System. In 2016, they urged that all states sign and ratify the CTBT “without delay and without conditions to achieve early entry into force of the treaty.”