ICAN awarded 2017 Nobel Peace Prize

[newcastle]

SLO, Oct 6 (Reuters) -

" The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, as the Norwegian Nobel Committee warned that the risk of a nuclear conflict is greater than for a long time.

ICAN describes itself as a coalition of grassroots non-government groups in more than 100 nations. It began in Australia and was officially launched in Vienna in 2007.

"We live in a world where the risk of nuclear weapons being used is greater than it has been for a long time," said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

In July, 122 nations adopted a U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, but nuclear-armed states including the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France stayed out of the talks.

The Nobel prize seeks to bolster the case of disarmament amid nuclear tensions between the United States and North Korea and uncertainty over the fate of a 2015 deal between Iran and major powers to limit Tehran's nuclear programme.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called the Iran agreement the "worst deal ever negotiated" and a senior administration official said on Thursday that Trump is expected to announce soon that he will decertify the landmark pact."

An interesting choice and certainly less controversial than some earlier recipients of the award.

The biggest criticism is likely to be that it seems purely symbolic given that the current possessors of nuclear weapons show little sign of abandoning them. None are parties to the existing U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

The committee chairperson, addressing this point, said that the committee has anticipated this reaction but considered that some recognition of the danger the world faces with nuclear weapons was better than doing nothing. They hoped the award would highlight the need for all states to focus their attention on efforts to promote the reduction, and ultimate elimination, of the 15,000 or so nuclear devices thought to be held somewhere or other on the planet.