IDPD expresses concern over nuclear test by North Korea

Tribune News Service

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Ludhiana, January 9

The Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) have expressed serious concern over testing of a Hydrogen-based nuclear weapon by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The development of new thermonuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them—whether by the DPRK or any other state—only increases the likelihood that these weapons will be used.

“We are equally concerned that at the same time, other nuclear-armed states—the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, and Israel—have failed to honour their own nuclear disarmament obligations, have insisted that their security depends upon nuclear weapons, and are engaged in multi-billion dollar programmes to modernise their arsenals. While these same countries have condemned the new nuclear test by the DPRK, their hypocrisy provides the government in Pyongyang with the arguments it is now using to justify expansion of its own nuclear weapons programme,” said Dr LS Chawla, president of IDPD.

A majority of countries now recognise, along with civil society, that preventing the use of nuclear weapons requires prohibiting and eliminating them.

“We urge the DPRK government to reconsider its pursuit of nuclear weapons and to join with the majority of states that have pledged to stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons because of their unacceptable humanitarian impact,” added further Dr Arun Mitra, general secretary of the association.