WCC NEWS: NATO urged to remove nuclear arms from Europe

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World Council of Churches - News

CHURCHES URGE NATO TO REMOVE ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS FROM EUROPE

For immediate release: 17 March 2011

The World Council of Churches (WCC) and church organizations on both
sides of the Atlantic are urging NATO to remove all United States nuclear
weapons still based in Europe and end their role in the alliance’s
policy. The 200 or so nuclear weapons involved are “remnants of Cold War
strategies” the ecumenical organizations say in joint letters. “NATO
should rethink deterrence and security cooperation in Europe”, they say,
and make good on NATO’s new commitment last year to “creating the
conditions for a world without nuclear weapons”.

The letters were sent to the leaders of NATO, the United States and Russia
in mid-March by the heads of the WCC, the Conference of European Churches,
the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA and the Canadian
Council of Churches. Removal of the US weapons still stationed in Germany,
Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Turkey, the churches note, would reduce by
one-third the number of countries that have nuclear weapons on their soil,
to 9 from 14.

The four organizations acted now in anticipation of an important NATO
nuclear policy review this year. That review and a NATO summit in 2012
present an “opportunity for change that is long overdue and widely
anticipated,” their letters say.

Some NATO countries, led by Germany, maintain that the weapons in question
have no role today. Others insist that they be kept for political reasons
even though their military utility is widely questioned. These countries
include France, which also has its own nuclear arsenal, and some of the
new members of NATO in Eastern Europe.

The ecumenical organizations had addressed NATO together on this issue
twice during NATO’s 60th anniversary in 2009, followed by a series of
church, government and NATO meetings. At the Lisbon summit late last year,
however, NATO members did not make major changes in nuclear policy. The
issue of the US tactical nuclear weapons still based in the five
non-nuclear European member states is especially divisive.

The church organizations also express concern about Russia’s large
arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons and stress the urgent need for
transparency, relocation and reductions there as well. However, the
organizations urge NATO to exercise its own nuclear arms control
responsibilities and not link the decision with potentially lengthy
negotiations between the US and Russia that would involve other arms
control issues.


The policies of all four ecumenical organizations call for complete nuclear
disarmament. A WCC delegation visited key capitals in Europe in 2004 to
advocate that NATO remove the US tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons
still in question now.

Read the ecumenical organizations’ letter to NATO (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=f38835e2d3425f25492e )

More information on WCC work for nuclear arms control (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=7d0ad65a10b0cc3c5dac )


The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness 
and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of 
churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, 
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million 
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman 
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.



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