so good evening ladies and gentlemen. i'd also like to welcome our guests. i'll be introducing themin the moment. the open forum of davostakes place every year as you know. this is the 8th timethe open forum has taken place. it's organized by the federationof swiss evangelical churches and the world economic forum. the issue this evening is
"a world without nuclearweapons? is it eutopia?" as you know president obamaand medvedev have reached an agreementor agreed that they needed to reduce the nuclear weapons. the negotiation is almost cometo a conclusion we've had but elsewherein the world. it's not the questionof disarmament but rather armament innorth korea, india, china, pakistan, of courseiran as well.
iran may well soon have itsown nuclear weapon and tomorrow perhaps aterrorist group such as al qaeda. so, how is it possible to reacha world without nuclear weapons? how and when? this is going to be our topicfor this evening and then you will have theopportunity to put your questions. so, with us this evening, we have mr. karl theodorfreiherr zu guttenberg. he is the defense ministerof the federal public of germany.
he's been in his officesince october last year. he was minister for economyand technology, before that and the general secretaryof the csu. and i should also saythat he is the youngest defense minister of germanyprobably. gareth evans,foreign minister of australia. he is co-chair of the commission of nuclearnon-proliferation and disarmament. miss salpy weiderudyeah, miss salpy weiderud, she is private consultant,a private consultant
in peace and security issue,please. and mr. sehgal from pakistan,he is chairman of the pathfinder g4s. mr. sehgal is a very longcourier in different life. he is a very famous columnist,editorial columnist in many newspapers. he's on tv too. he was director of a bank and he is a permanent memberof the world economic forum. thank you very much. so, i'll ask my first question,quite a simple one, perhaps
to mr. zu guttenberg. what's your personal viewon nuclear weapons? what's your personal position? ah and that's an easy question. my personal view is somethingthat i think everybody feels that we would like to see a worldwithout nuclear weapons. it is something that i feel very deeply and something that has to be pursuedwith political ends but it's going to be a rocky road.
it's going to be complicatedto achieve that and certainly had points alongthat road. there will be disappointment. it's more complex than some peoplebelieve and it will be difficult to say at this date at sometime we will not have nuclear weaponsin the world because the balance between proliferationson the existing arsenals has to be recognized. do you think that the situation todayis more dangerous than say ten years ago? well, perhaps we could look backto 1989, 1990
where the world was bipolaralmost symmetrical and today we have asymmetrical threats. i often say that the only thingyou can rely on today is the fact that we cannotpredict anything. now, it's difficult to say giventhat things have become dangerous. what's changed is that it's difficultto follow the threat of nuclear weapons. quite often you don't see proliferationhappening you've present with the *** mr. evans we have...
there are currently nine states that have nuclear weaponin the world officially? one currently in north koreawhich we don't like to but eight others, yes. and we have more than 23,000nuclear warheads in the world. is the situation very dangerous?what do you mean? it's very dangerous indeed. those 23,000 warheads between themhave the destructive capability equivalent to a hundred and fiftythousand hiroshima bombs and that is a capacity obviouslyable to destroy all life on this planet
many times over. but there's many fewer thanthose weapons are needed to have that result. as few study 40, 50 weapons in a some kind of seriesnuclear exchange would also have devastating impacton the planet and that's to leave 22,975 to go. it's sheer lock, sheer damned lock. not a result of good management.
not as a result of goodpolitical leadership but we have not had so fara nuclear catastrophe since the end ofthe second world war a nuclear explosion deliberately. the problem of miscalculation,the problem of accident is huge. we're learning over and over againust how close we came on a number of occasionsduring the cold war years to a catastrophe of this kind. a member of my commission,william perry,
the us former defense secretarytold us of at least three experiences that he was involved inwhen he was a senior scientist in the defense department. when he was workingby the commanders in the middle of the night saying our radar screens are showing200 russian icbms into continental missilescoming on to us. we think it's a computer glitchbut we're not sure getting here and find out.
and, you know,we had 20 minutes to make a decisionbecause that's the delivery time for these weapons, 20 minutes or lessto make a decision as to whether to respond or not and this stuff happenover and over again. in these days, with due respect to mypakistani colleague, we don't have commandand control systems
of the sophisticationand intensity that existed us between russiaor in the united states and of course we face the prospect - in some of the countriesthat have nuclear weapons now and we face the prospect of evenmore plays coming into the game. so, if we thinkwe can be complacent, if we think that the status quocan just continue, we are seriously, seriously wrongand this is an issue. even though the worldis sort of gone to sleep
on this since the endof the cold war particularly for thelast ten years, it's absolutely criticalthat we now capture this momentum which does exist with president obamacoming to office and with a completely different viewabout this to his predecessors. president medvedev from russiashowing some signs of being responsive, it's critical that wepick up the momentum and take it from them. i agree with dr. guttenberg
that this is very longand complicated process but we can talk abouthow complicated later on. the main thing is to be absolutely clearin our mind that we must have a worldwithout nuclear weapons. can i just say three moresentences because i think the -- just one question. is it president obama? we heard president obama in a -he was in iraq last april and he said we want a worldwithout nuclear weapon.
can we hope that president obamawill do something, will be successful a lot? i've been to washingtonmany times encoding and preparingthis big report which has just come out spokento all the senior people there including the vice presidentand a lot of other senior players and all of them absolutely persuaded thatobama is personally totally committed, totally sincere about thisand totally passionate about it. it's quite a big argumentgoing all in washington
at the moment about what they calla nuclear posture review which in the past is just beinga sudden robust stamp thing coming out at the pentagon and this has been sent backand back and back and there's a big debate thatwill continue for probably another two months before we see it inwhich one of the issues is what nuclear weapons are for. and what president obamawants to say
is that so long as we haveany new nuclear weapon as a tool, the only purposefor which the us should keep them and have them available for useis dealing with nuclear threat contingencies. not the existing doctrinewhich is a real issue for nato country, then existing doctrine, the american doctrine isstrategic ambiguity. we keep open the optionof using nuclear weapons even for non nuclearthreat contingency. the politics have always avery difficult in the united states
as there are many countries but the short answer to your questionis obama is serious and i think he will deliverto the extent possibly politically he can. obama is serious. i would like to ask the same questionto zu guttenberg. russia and u.s. are possessing95 percent of the nuclear weapon on the world. are they the real right countryto say we have to stop it? should i answer in englishor in german?
i think as we want perhapsin german for the -- okay. excuse me i'm *** well, i think the u.s.and russia can really set a veryimportant examples and the very important messagewhich can have a huge impact. having said that we're in a situation as hasjust been said while other countries are strivingtowards nuclear weapons
and countries who have saidthat we are committed to disarmament under the ctvt et cetera, et cetera. so, it's very complicated but if we're talking about russiaand america, it constitutes about 22,000 warheadswhich leaves a thousand unaccounted for and i think that that's still a huge amount. weiderud, your position,you represent here the civil society. what is the role of the civil societyon this issue? well, quite complicated
but i think without adeep broad collective sustain civil society push, i don't see governmentsmoving forward in general. right now civil societyis seeing that there is hope out there with president obamawith the different events that are up coming this spring andbetter review, unique in washington dc. we have a lot of guidancefrom the evans... report that we have right now and other reportsthat have come out,
the un secretary generalbut the civil society feels that at this stagewe need to move to a clear goal and what they're pushing foris an international convention to band nuclear weapons. we're able to manage thatwith the mine band - with the mine band treatyand it was a collective action with like minded governmentsworking together and to say that there is a hopeand there is a vision what we can do it. what kind of action?what kind?
right now you see a lot of different -there's the traditional ngos that work on nuclear issues. i've been working for theworld council of churches and churcheshave both churches as well as the fellowship of churches,the world council of churches and different community -communions of churches have always from the beginning called for the evolutionof nuclear weapons. they've called it a sinagainst god,
crime against humanity. they're organized groups.they're there who have structures, who can work with people,who can move forward. the question is how to worktogether and not to keep them in different compartmentalize waysbut to move together in a concerted manner right now. and i think we need to seea wider coalition. we need to see youth, womenand others who come together then they are concernbut unfortunately
even on the nuclear agendait has never been a top priority. so, and this is the timebecause it's very -- it's fragile. you know governments can change. they've used very -if there is no concerted push from the people. after all politics is somethings something very local and local peopleshould get involved. so you think it's a top priority. gareth evans, so we see the situationis very dangerous as you said.
who should have to data thepossibility to say we stop it global zero like kissinger said20 years ago? well, in terms of achievingdisarmament getting rid of those 22,000 weapons,the initial responsibility is that of the us and russia between them as we've seen22,000 weapons and as crucial thatwe see not in the quick conclusion of the bilateral treatythey are negotiating right now but also a continuation of thatinto further stages
over and over againin the next 10, 15 years to get right down tomuch smaller numbers if not to absolute zeroin that timeframe much smaller numbers. then there's a responsibilityfor the other six nuclear arm states and of course the outlaw caseof north korea. china has something over200 nuclear weapons. they won't tell us how many. the french have 300,the brits about a hundred and sixty,
israelis probably a couple of hundred although they don't own up tohaving any at all. and india and or in pakistanthey also keep things reasonably quiet but we believe there's at least 60 or 70 nuclear weaponsin each of those. ikram sehgal might want tocomment on that. and they've got aresponsibility to come into this two. we can't just leave it allto russia and the united states and we have to commencea serious process
but those are going to takea long time of getting them involvedin multi-electoral discussion. but then we've got the responsibilityof ensuring that nobody else joins the ranks of thenuclear arm countries. and that's a much broader responsibilities. not just on iran andthose countries that are perhaps poisedto go down at that path and we'll maybe talk aboutaround later on. but it's the responsibilitythe whole international community
to agree on strategies,on pressures, on sanctions, on disciplines under thenorm proliferation treaty and outside it that we'll make lifevery, very difficult to impossible for anyone whowants to go down that path and that's a universal responsibility. and the trade off isi'm afraid pretty evident in the politics of this. if we are going to get thatconsensus from the world at large and from many countrieswithout nuclear weapons
to really, really cooperateon the non-proliferation side, we got to get the big guys,the existing nuclear arm states getting serious and visibly seriousabout disarmament. so, if you ask me to prioritizethe responsibility as the primary responsibilityis the existing nuclear arm states. the secondary responsibilityis the whole international community and then the third layer ofresponsibility as being said is civil society to keep governmentson us to keep the moving in this direction into governmentalorganizations
because without political pressurecoming up from below from citizens was this country knowsbetter than most, politicians don't like doing verymuch it too. mr. evans, this is a beautiful word. all the community have to do thatbut what could bring iran, north korea, china or pakistan? we will perhaps ask mr. sehgalto cooperate. well, i'm happy to talk about thisall night. but why don't you ask -why don't you ask ikram sehgal.
he is a pakistani.he's got some responsibilities there. i will give the floor to youmr. sehgal. you are from the country pakistan. pakistan is not member of thenuclear treaty, non-proliferation treaty but it's a nuclear or it's in the clubof nuclear club. what do you think about what was saidfrom mr. evans? well, before i answer your questionyou left one of my careers out and that was that i was army officer,an infantry soldier and i fought two wars at india.
and to answer -to give a short answer to that i agree with what under honorabledefense minister and gareth who gave this thing,we need to disarm. we do not need a country - we do not need a world withnuclear weapons. with the threat of nuclear weaponsposses a threat of extinction of the holy human race and naturally even we lookat each other and when we look at what thisworld has achieved,
we do not want to give it awaymaybe even by accident. you know maybe likegareth was saying 200 icbm is heading their wayand then some read their decision that maybe are wrong decisionto launch and attack. another question is,if it we're too concerned pakistan only then i would say to you that you were felt threatenedenough by iraq to go to war at iraq. you were felt threatened enoughby iran now to have all this thing. why didn't you feel threatenedby pakistan up to now?
because pakistan's nuclear responsewas specific. it was the response to indiabelieve a nuclear... pakistan has been attackedtwice by war. they fought three wars with india.two of which i have fought in and obviously indiahas a conventional army which is four to five times largerthan that of pakistan. and pakistan's only defense leftwhen india want nuclear was to have a nuclear response. why doesn't iran feelthreatened by us?
why doesn't afghanistan orkirgizstan or china or bangladesh or anybody elsein the vicinity could threatened by us? now, having said thati now realized that the world does feel threatened by the factthat we have nuclear weapons and that is why becausethere's no one nexus, possible nexus between terrorismand nuclear weapons. now, in that respect,i hold the world responsible for keeping us out intothe nuclear cord. we have a situationwhere we have an enemy,
a declared enemy who hadattacked us three times. you mean india? india. now, obviously we have todefend ourselves. with nuclear weapon? certainly as a nuclear country. why doesn't have an arm forcesto defend itself? obviously they have nuclear weapons.we have to have a similar response. but by keeping us outinto the nuclear cord,
you are putting usinto the black market. now, the black market is atwo-way street. when you go into the black marketand you go and try and get access to nuclear material or nuclear fuelthen you have to give away something and obviously there is terrorism. now, that is a strong case for bringingpakistan out of the nuclear cord, giving -- making pakistan responsiblefor its activities. gareth has talked aboutcommand and control. what command and controlcan we have
and we have no accessto that technology? obviously you keep us outinto the nuclear cord. we have the nuclear weapons. we have the nuclear -the means to deliver them and yet the world did not feelthreatened before that because they knew like iran or iraq,unlike them they knew that it was india specific. that is why i ask you thatthere is a reason for pakistan to come in, to bring pakistan on the nuclear cord
and make pakistan responsiblefor its actions. will you speak afterabout the black market. it's a very dangerous situation. you are writing now a bookabout this issue. we will speak about at that later. i have another question. we still have this issueabout why some countries have the right to havenuclear weapons and others don't? for example today pakistan,israel probably
and not iran, not north korea.what's your view? well, you have discriminatevery clearly who is subject to monitoring regime,who is subject to treaties, who is following a certain kindof logical process. and you need to distinguish clearlybetween who is doing what. the description that we've hadis one of the sort of fatalistic logic and saying at that time we have a possibility of international lawwhich needs to be applied. that brings us to some to the debateregarding iran
which is very complicated. but allow me to touch uponone other issue of the global zero approach because i think that the questionswe have to ask is that can we do? does it make senseand will with that? there are few countrieswhich would see themselves as being under the nuclear umbrellaof a country maybe japan, taiwan,turkey. what would happen with thoseif russia and if i say
disarmed completely. do you then have to saywe then have to do away with our nuclear umbrella? and on the other sidethey have countries that are not prepared to disarm. so i'll just give you then examplesbecause i need to emphasize that it is perhaps more complicated than just following barack obama'sdetermination to disarm. so, one has to take into accountall of the possibility.
well, it is complicatedbut not that complicated. yeah, it's complicatedbut it's very dangerous so we have to do something. i mean the first thingis the notion that do any states have a rightto retain nuclear weapons indefinitely and perpetuity is simplyunsustainable. now, the minister is perfectly rightthat there are five states that are legally entitled tohave weapons at the moment under international treaty law,
the united states, russia, britain,france and china and the others are outlaws in the sense they just go onhit and grab them. that's perfectly true. but that particularly treatyalso says that those existing legalnuclear weapon states have an obligation to move towardsdisarmament and to the extent that they're notseriously exercising that obligation then they themselves arguablyare in breach of the treaty
and the pressure has to be kepton them. there's more than just alegal pressure, it's a moral pressure. what really gets up are the people's nosearound the world and certainly got up the indianand pakistanis and israelis' nose was the notion that there arecertain countries that were sort of born to havetheir particular security anxieties, protect the binuclear weapons but others we're not entitled tohave their existential security anxieties
equally so met. and people over the worldhates double standards and it's just very difficultto sustain a position if you keep on insistingon the distinction. and so that's whywe've got a breakthrough and get equally serious commitmentto disarmament. now, what about the achievabilityof disarmament? i agree that you are not gettingto get to zero anytime soon. what we argue for in this reportis a two-stage process.
can we see that book?what is the book that you've --? the book i'm waving around is this great big report thatis just being -- publicity. just being published. it's available on the internetand i've got copies of people who want them in whichi can send to you but it's available on the internet,www.icnnd.org., you know, it's cool.
it's a three hundredthirty-page report of the international commissionon nuclear non-proliferation in the summit which isdemonstrated in japan, initiated exercise morethan a year ago but had all. i mean klaus norman,the german general, will perry, the former britishdefense secretary, gro brundtland, the formernorwegian prime minister, former mexican president, the father of indian bombbrijesh mishra,
shirley williams from the uk,a very distinguished group of international states personswho came to this issue with many different perspectives. but it's a joint australia, japaninitiated exercise and what an officehere's a blueprint if i had to do all these thingsand what we say to be as quick as i canis that we're advocating a two-phase process. first of all, minimizationand then secondly elimination
and what we say is theminimization stage we can set a target datefor and we set one 2025. and what we say is that by 2025we can ensure it get to normal than 2,000 weapons in the worldas a whole, a 90 percent plus reductionon where we're at the moment. plenty of ngos and peoplesay that's not good enough. we got to do better than that. sooner than that and franklyin the present environment if we can get to that sort of levelas quickly as that
we will be doing very well indeed. then what we say aboutgetting to zero, we just get there as fast as we can.no point in trying to set a data on it. it would be lacking incredibility to do so. why, because there are gipolitical issues, there are psychological issues,there are problems of enforcement, there are problems of verification which we know a nightmareis really difficulty. but they're all achievableand the main thing
last word is to try to changethe mindset, to get away from this military logic that states are always gettingto be warning to shoot each other up. you are going to have tohave deference, deterrence capabilityone kind or another nd then you have the argumentabout whether you can do it with nuclear weapons onlyor whether you can do it with conventional means. but you know if we are goingto solve this problem,
the world is got to be at alldifferent place when it come to conflict resolutionin kashmir and all these issues that havemade lives so impossible. you're very optimistic. but we can talk abouthow to do it. but just let me finishin that note and i'd like to talk aboutalliance relationships and extended deterrence issues because i've opened upat the means
but we can come back to that. but just let me finish on onetiny little note of optimism about the magnitude of this task. people don't realize itbut since the end of the cold war, ordinary conflicts both across bordersand within borders have dramatically declined. there has been an 80 percent reduction in the number of major conflictsdefined by a thousand or more people being killed in a year and 80,8-0 percent reduction
also in the number of battleof people dying in that situation. there's a whole variety reasonsfor that but the main reason is sincethe cold war, we've just got healed of a lot betterat conflict resolution, through negotiation,through the role of the un and other regional organizationsin peace keeping, peace building and there is reason to believethat we're not just inevitably stuck with the world determined deterrenceof the path. we can do better.
we're going to keepthat momentum going and this will looka lot more realistic if that process can continue. thank you. miss salpy,what have you to --? i think there were two wordsthat were coming to my mind as i was listening tothe eminent gentleman and that's they caught inbetween fear and fact. if we get the facts then we're empoweredto be able to act.
if we live under the fearand under the absurdity that nuclear weapons give us securitythen we want to own more if he has it then i want it. if he's powerful and he'sbeing rewarded because he has weapons, he is still sitting on the permanentfive at the security council, why shouldn't i. so he's rewarded i want to. i'm a mother now and i cansee what cause and effect does.
so, first of all we have to beclear and say nuclear weapons do not give us security. on the contrary, their sheer existenceeven if they don't blow up they make us insecure then it's a question of factsif we know what we're talking about. i mean there are reportslike this out there and people need to read them. they're maybe a bit too sophisticatedfor some but there are ways, there are peoplethey are available
they are going around talkingand they're available not only to states but they arealso available to a simple ngo person workingcommitted on all sorts of issues. so we need to a fact, fact, fact, facts. we have to share informationand we need to understand that the title of this thing,it's not -- it's a utopian vision but we can make ita feasible reality and stop this thingthat if we own it we can - i respect mr. evans said thatthere are the achievable.
we are hoping for 2020 convention.they want to minimize. it's a very optimistic reason.i want to give you the floor but first mr. evans you organized,it was last september in cairo the meeting between iran and israel,a secret meeting but we heard about that. so, you have a country israel wassupposed to have the nuclear weapon? it's not -- you probably searched on.you have another iran. we don't accept the nuclear program.how can the negotiation continue? the press reports of that meetingwere much exaggerated. do you think though?
what happened was in the course of our consultationsall around the world we convened a meeting,off the record in cairo of all the regional countries, they are oblique countriesand iran and israel and hey all came. now 20, 25 of them representedthat both government and civil societyresearch institution level. and what we were debatingamong other things was the achievability of a regionalweapons of mass destruction
on nuclear weapons for resign. this is an extremely relevant issuein the context of the forthcoming non-proliferationtreaty review conference. for complicated historical reasonsi went go indeed but basically the developing worldhas made movement forward on this regional zone issuea condition of support for continuing the treaty. so, we were exploring waysof solving that particular problem getting some forward movement.
very difficult i should saywhen israel won't even admit to having any weapons as a toolbut there are ways of discussing as you can talk about havingsafeguarded facilities or not and, you know, what would be needed to get the israelisto agree to having safeguarded facility. it's a double talk and even you knowit's a double talk but you can't still talk. and so the discussion went backwardsand forwards across the room. it got rather heated from time to timewith some of the participants as you can imagine
but we came a waythose of us organizing all these with the feeling that it justmight be possible within the next year or soor the un secretary general to bring together again himselfa meeting of the regional parties to discuss what the preconditionswould be for weapons of mass destructionfor resign? what the prerequisites for would it be? ... to think in termsof a negotiation, that's not going to happenuntil israel for one
is much more confidentabout its security situation but i think we can move forwardon that issue. there's a lot more to sayon the iran issue but maybe we can come backto that. yeah we can speak about toiran issue because it's a very interestingand we speak a lot about iran. if you like to add to -- i just try to recall the discussionabout preconditions with iran for the last coupleof years.
yeah. and how hard it isto really get to any consensus about preconditions already about the preconditions ofpreconditions and other things. so, we have gone through,we've walked quite a path here and just i'd love to share youroptimism but -- well, can i just say a word or twoabout iran because in my previous roleas president of the international crisis group for the last ten yearssince i left politics,
i've been working on that issuepretty consistent. in iran? in iran? in iran. i'm visiting to iranand talking to many, many diplomat. my belief in short about this issueis this and i hope i'm not being na�ve, one, the iraniansi'm not going to return to a world in which they are not makingany nuclear material at all. it's enrichment issue, fabricationand they're not going to do it. and part of the problem
with all the negotiationsup until very recently is there's being an insistencethat the iranians commit to going back to zero enrichment,too much pride, too much politics, too much everything for thatto happen. so what we got to aim atis getting the thing whereby you don't cross the red linethat really matters moving from capability toproduce a weapon to actually producing a weapon. that's the red line that really,really matters.
as long as you just got capability, you can technically be withinthe legality of the non-proliferation treaty.if you're not -- but let me -- just a question -oh yeah. yeah? why am i optimisticthat there is an agreement potentially negotiable of that kindwhereby the iranian stop short of weaponizingand allowing inspectors to give us confidencethat they are serious about that? there are whole variety of reasonsbut very, very quickly.
one, is i think they do fearthat they might get zapped by the israelis if they do actuallyacquire weapons and i think they can probablystir that down between now and then before they actually do weaponize because there's too much anxietyabout the implications. number two, they do feelthat they select the rope that the russians and the chinesehave given them tapping them with the featherin the security council that will run out, that kind oftested support.
if they weaponize, thirdly,they fear that the other major countriesin the region egypt, saudi arabia and turkeywill just not tolerate a nuclear arm shiite.... stateand they basically i think have made the judgmentthat they can get all the political gains they wantthumbing their nose at the ways demonstratingtechnological capability, acquiring a bit of chest thumbingstature in the region without actually acquiring a weapon
and we shouldas an international community be prepared to negotiateon the assumption that that outcome is possiblefor that reason. that's a -- very tough, very toughfor the europeans. germans know a lot moreabout this than everybody else because you've been doing it. are you sure it's a veryoptimistic question? well, i would love to share it-- i'd love to share it
and i would share itif i didn't feel that this red line was constantly being shiftedbackwards. i would also share the hopeif we had a clear indication that at this juncture in time there were clearly a civil usefulapproach which would at the same time allow a bit of chest beatingbut that actual point is long been left behind. the last offer, the extended handfrom an american president was not accepted.
indeed it was not the wayand it's difficult to see enrichment as a part of this. and then there was -there were requirements from the international atomicenergy agency. these rules are refused, rejectedout of hand. so, i think that unfortunatelywe have to conclude that the iranians want to goto further than peaceful civil use. the americans are sayingthat the iranians are naive two or three years awayfrom an atomic bomb.
well, we've heard all kinds ofprojections over the last few years. i've not joined this discussionbut they are at a very advanced stage. i think what's right is to searchoriginal solutions. we want to avoid an armsraised in the region. and then it wouldn't be linked toor just limited to one individual country and what might happen if irango to weapon is that maybe saudi arabiawould try for one then turkey would feel thatthey have one as well and so it would contain -- (speaking in foreignlanguage).
yeah. president obama said freeto peace through strength. what kind of strength can be appliedthrough sanctions, military means? well, that's why i thinkit's important to use the word peaceful and it is a last resort,is a military means would simply run the riskof turning the whole area into a war zone. i think we need to applypeaceful means in iran. the negotiations thereare important but sanctions would require some kind of dual track approach
so that it become kind of incentivesfor compliance and at the same time sanctionsfor what isn't met. but i think that sanctionshave the limit. however, a military solutioni believe is the least possible desirable of allsteps and it should be avoided. we say in iran. yeah, in iran. i mean i feel with gareth evansand the minister. i'm sure they're theexpert's willingness
but i would feel with iran. they are proud peopleand i'm aware of iranian origin and we have different cultures away.we talk to each other sometimes we say one thing but wereally mean something else and it's a bit difficult. i'm married to a swiss so iknow what it's like to communicate but i think with iran we need to focus on transparencyand for disclosure. yes, not only on what they tell us
but what they also don't saywhat they're doing it. but isn't it true thatthe religious leaders in iran, the supreme leader has said that has called the factual againstthe production of nuclear weapons? i mean isn't there a waythat maybe there could be also involvement with the religious leadership there? i don't know if that experiencehas happened? mr. evans can you --? well, just on the last pointabout the factual.
yeah, yeah. i mean this fact wasn't factwas in the year of will and maybe this is nota very serious one but i've actually been quiteimpressed on a funny kind of way by the sincerity of those iranianwho've said that, you know, allah doesn't likeweapons of mass destruction and frankly never been inthat busy. remember that they did notacquire chemical weapons in response to being attackedby chemical weapons by iraq
during that old fulliraq-iran war and they say that there werereligious constraints stopping in doing thatand i have had little guys, whiskery guys with theirchest panting with gas of attack, being very, very passionate about the harsh of anyweapons of mass destruction saying never, never, never... now, you can discountall of that and i didn't even mentionin among my list of reasons
for a degree of optimismthat they want to actually weaponized but it's a factor and we would bearthat in mind. but i just want to makeone more point why was that that on the faceof a perfectly reasonable offer was rejected just before christmasbecause this was a way through. it didn't attack head on theiranians right to enrich the uranium. it gave everyone breathing space. this is a complicated dealbut basically to take internationally the enrichedmaterial they did already have
to turn it into the kind of fuel that could be used in research reactor peaceful purposesgive it back to iran. domestic politics to the explanationfor why that happened not in america this time but in iran, ahmadinejad actually supportedthe deal and a lot of the people around him that everybody gets hysterical aboutsupported the deal. i don't think he was very lovedby the revolutionary guards out there on his lit and that was certainly a factor.
but the real reasonthat deal failed through was all the good guyswho we think won the last election and who we think ofas the democratic standard bearers, there were fearsin their criticism of ahmadinejad for even thinking aboutaccepting this deals. this was selling outthe national interest. so that the troublewith the nuclear issue, the pride factor involvedin having this capability in stirring everybody thenis making it very, very difficult
to get sign in balance responses. but in the meantimei'm nervous of what's going on around. i certainly believe the pressureshould be maintained. i certainly believe that the iranianshave got hell of lot... in terms of they are reportingand their dishonesty and lack of transparencyin terms of some of the programs they have undoubtedly hadin the past. i certainly believe that they'reinching significantly close to actual weapons capability.
but i still believe that we shouldpremise responsible that this on not on the assumptionthat they hailed being to acquiring a weapon little on using itbut on the assumption that what they really aboutis acquiring breakout capability, virtual capability, stirring everyone down,winning the political arugment, just bidding. i really do think inside and youdeveloped some instinct about this stuff when you've been aroundas long as i have been. i hope i am not stupidly na�vebut my instinct is
that what's it's all aboutand on that basis we should be hastening very, very slowlyindeed before doing anything rash. just a word about the situationin iran, after i want to speakabout pakistan. no, no, no. i'm so sorry. well, i just have a feeling whichi want to bring into this dialogue. my trust in the reasonableunderstanding of the iranians, the common sense of the iranianshasn't really grown
over the last few years and i think that there a numberof reasons for that and now obviously something andsomebody who believes in democracy and it's very difficult to acceptthis kind of approach. obviously, we want to approachnegotiations reasonably. we want to approach themwith common sense but i think that we might findas i was finding that our negotiation partner ispursuing other means, has other targets. i would like to speak.
you say you spoke aboutthe black market in your country, the particular situation ofyour country pakistan. you told me before that it wasa very, very dangerous situation. you are writing a bookabout the situation, can you say more? yes, first of all i like to makea comment that i was - i came to this forum expectedto be bombarded as a nuclear country but i'm very glad that all thesechanges are taking place about iran and not pakistan. we show that pakistan isconsidered a responsible nation
and that is why you knowwhen i talk to you about writing the book, the thing is that when youwrite a book and you copy from one personis called copying or plagiarism. but when you copied from manypeople that's called research. now, basically in doing the researchi came across materially to shocking because it was shocking to me because obviously not beingof the security operators and seeing, you know,i realized that to get access
to nuclear material and fuelit must have been an exercise. but how that exercise went aboutwas fascinating but also shocking becausewhen you go into the black market and you say i have to get technologyor i have to get spare parts or i have to get....or whatever, nd you may come across some peoplewho will do it only for money but - like we've had people fromswitzerland or germany or france or italy or united states,they do that for us. but on the other handthere are people
who would say okay fine,we'll give you the technology but you have to give ussomething back in return. and when you are facedwith the situation where you cannot have accessto the technology, then you are saying okay fine,what do i do? do i face extinction? because you do not know thatduring the last ten years india and pakistan came very close to nuclear war twice, once after the indian parliamentwas attacked in 2002 and once in 2008 afterthe bombard incident.
in both times the armies are moston the border and we were threatened by that. in both times it was only the factof our nuclear weapons to stop them from going to waragainst us. so that was a deterrent. now, the first time also that deterrentwas that there were a lot of americans occupying some more bases and obviously they didn't wantto be attacked by nuclear weapons from india.
now, when you're looking at thisblack market -- i have just one question -excuse me mr. sehgal, who can have access to thisblack market? for instance, you have avery strong terrorist movement in pakistan,al qaeda, you have the taliban very near. do you think these people can? do they have an accessto the black market kind of have access to thenuclear technology very easily?
i think it is possible. i'm not going to say about the talibanbut al qaeda, yes. it's terrific. it is possible. they could possibly,you know, because obviously they had the means to goand perform 9/11, right, and you know obviously there have been lot of evidence that they tried chemical weapons. what do you think about that?
well, it's very unsettling. i think there are different assessmentsof whether al qaeda has access to nuclear material. many people don't but it is the case. but i think we need to beextremely weary. the information that we have is that they don't have any yet but it's only a small step perhaps and the destruction that could resultis awful. i want to open the discussionto the public.
is it possible that terrorism movementhave today already access to the nuclear technology? no, we don't think so. it's all impossible they couldnot least in the pakistan situation where there is lines of accessarguably through military personnel and so on because a long historyof that country. but no, i think if they havewe'd know about it by now much more there is a risk but it's-- and it's not a negligible risk of the terrorist getting access tobomb making material
and being able to do the kind ofengineering that's necessary to make a simple hiroshimastyle bomb. it's not impossible to tool thembut it's a much lower risk than the other terrorist option. a very, very simple oneof gaining access to radioactive material that the kind is used in x-ray machines and many, many industrializedapplications and piling that on top ofconventional explosives in setting it off and althoughthe damage you can do from that
physically is nothing like the scaleof which you can do with the nuclear explosion probablyso-called. the psychological impact of thatwould be phenomenal. there would be large...and parts of cities would be inhabitable for thesignificant periods and i think and that'sso much easier an option for terrorist that to almost certainthat that's kind of route that they're likely to get it in but you can't discountthe possibility
and that's why it's importantthat we talk about nuclear security and we talked go on being very,very fears about non-proliferation because the more countrieshat are in this game and the more enrichment andreprocessing facilities, there are obviously in the morecountries that the risks to increase is quitesignificant. okay, so we see thatthe situation is dangerous, serious that there is some hopefor a world without nuclear weapon. i open the discussion.
you have now the possibilityto give your question and if you like do you now have thechance to ask questions? please state your nameand then put your question. yes? the microphone iscoming right to you. my name is mr. hufa.i'm here with the group from the... foundationexpressing my own personal view. i don't share your optimismmr. evans with regard to the ultimate objectiveof eliminating nuclear weapons,
getting them down to zero. i do think they can be considerablyreduced however. these weapons have beenin the world since 1945 for the powers who possessedand they won't give them up because they can be forcedinto agreeing and if they are scared thenthey want to keep their weapons. is there a realistic objectiveof getting them down to some minimum level and those -if you like illegitimate nuclear powers today become legitimate nuclear powersso that the whole thing
is brought under control is if youlegalized and around that there will be a more realistic systemand relationship around this. choose your weapon to -who is your question to? anybody who feels, love,they wish to answer? look it is a realistic objectiveand what we're talking about with this minimization processis getting down with the americans moving from 9,000 warheadsdown to 500 russians moving from 13,000down to 500 and the other six establishednuclear states having no more
than a thousand between themwhich is roughly what they probably haveat that moment on coarse estimates and would involve them actuallyfreezing any further weapons who are having net lossesover time to compensate for any gains. that's not unrealistic tool because even on the most neuroticdefense department assessments of what kind of capability they needto deal with any contingency you can't do it of a lot with500 weapons and the kind of stocks that the other countries havehad demonstrate that.
in terms and the psychologyof getting there and the politics are getting thereor something else again but i genuinely believe thatthis is possible and that the kind of anxietythat was mentioned earlier on in this debate about allies turkeyor some of the nato allies or the northeast asians,the japanese and so on being very anxious about adiminution with the nuclear umbrella. i think either of those numbersshould give nobody course for allowing them a tool in termsof defense capability
but more particularly you couldmove to which is very important to move quickly to a doctrinethat weapons, nuclear weapons are not to be usedfor non-nuclear threat contingence so you could move to that tomorrowwith confidence if you're at japan or koreaor a nato ally because frankly the capabilitywith conventional weapon rate to deal with biological or chemicalor any other threat contingency is so great. it's all about mind changing andmindset changing and that the basic storythat is got to get out there
is these three simple linesso long as anyone has nuclear weapons others are going to want them. the -- so long as any statehas nuclear weapons, they're bound one day to be usedby accident or miscalculation if not designed and see any such use. any such use would be catastrophic. now, that mindset is i thinkbeginning to catch hold. there has been a big changein the electoral debate about all of these sincenot actually obama.
two years earlier than obamawhen kissinger shoots... the gang of four or the fourus former defense for our own secretaries actuallysigned the famous a bid. kissinger of all people for god's sakesaying nuclear weapons whatever the utility might have beenin the cold war and you try to -- but it 25 years ago and wehad more and more nuclear weapons. no, but what i was sayingwas whatever the utility might have been these daysand in any future world that we can envisage, nuclear weaponsare far more dangerous,
far more risk than any securitythey can possibly provide. now, if you get that mindsetembedded, desperately needed americanleadership because so long as that wasn't happening,you would even getting start on that. if that is followed throughwith the obama administration, we are going to see a much, muchdifferent approach to these issues than we've seen so farand i think we can get it. you're right that is going to bevery difficult indeed to get the last stagedown to zero
but if you can gather them, i mean to me you can get a self-fulfillingforward momentum that is completely lacking atthe moment. would you want to say anythingon that point? well, i think you've had an...ahead and i don't want to bethe party people but i really share the objectiveabsolutely. the gang of four was referred tothe new evolutionist. it's almost an irony of history.
those who were reallythe enemies of the old evolutionist who havebecome the new evolutionist has been a complete turnaroundthere and i don't think you should underestimate thatsign of hope. and with obama and hisinitiatives there's a chance of reachinga level where a verification ragingcould work far better than it works today and particularly between the russiansand american, we could see a real reductionin nuclear warheads.
but now it's time to playor to strike a more pessimistic turn. the question is who is goingto move first? who come and move at thesame time if so cannot be verified. what is the future going to look like? will the alternative lead toless civil casualties and death. so, i'm being the devils advocatea little bit but these are all factors that needto be taken into account. i don't think i'll use a very farfrom one another but i'm slightly less optimisticin my approach.
you are a conservativearen't you? i'd like to just mention here. yeah sure. one of the real good sketches i sawwas if you remember robert mcnamara was thedefense secretary during the vietnam war and thereis a vietnam war in washington. there's got the inscriptionsof the 55,000 american dead and two, three years before he died,robert mcnamara said that he had made a mistake in vietnamand you have the sketch
of this named telling each otherpass it long, mcnamara has realized his mistakeof all the dead. so this is what you are talking about. hello, i myself, i'm anengineering student and i personally believe that usingmy skills towards the destruction or killing somebody is probablythe worst human mistake. so, i wonder if mr. evans foundin his research why the scientists are using theirvaluable knowledge towards these objectives. are they using these?
are they creating these or producing thesewith mass weapon destruction for money, for political reasons, religion?that's my question. thank you for the question. from which country are you?excuse me? i'm from columbia? columbia. thank you.who want to answer? well very briefly. i think the scientists who workedon the original manhattan bomb project
in the united states were obviouslytorn by huge moral doubts and dilemmas in the context in which theywere working towards the end of thesecond world war, those who were responsible formaking decision to drop the bomb on japan but torn again. and we know about thatfrom the many, many harrowing tales of the people who involved in thosedebates and i think and i knowand i admit a lot of the scientists who do this sort of stuffand i don't think very many of them
are sort of doctor strangeloveswho are passionately determined to use these things to...in destruction. most of them are well-motivatedby to the extent they think about the implications of whatthey're doing by the belief that acquiringa huge deterrent capability and a mutual deterrent capabilitywill actually be a forceful for peace. what they can't answeris the argument that you just can't be complacentthat you can have that capability without it being used.
but, you know,that's a way of dealing with the moral dilemmas thatare concern. but i think we werenot to be rough on the idea of people who are acquiringphysics in nuclear engineering capability not just for the civil nuclear purposebut with the military purposes. there are huge number of tasks that again in need to be done by highly, highly qualifiedcapable people in terms of just managing a processof disarmament and i'm along with the processof element.
i mean those research laboratoriesand so on are going to be maintained, you know, for that kind of purposeto manage this process. weapons who got to, you know,have a degree of reliability to give people the comfortthat they are going to have thousands and thousands ofredundancy capabilities built in that, you know, if you're goingto get down a very low numbers people are going to be veryconfident, those remaining weapons are goingto work. so, i mean there's all sorts ofgood reason that are consistent
with what we are trying to achievethat should not lead one to, you know, be to condemn the tree of those peoplewho get into this game. i think most of the people are acutelyconscious of the moral dilemmas that are involved and wanted to dothe right thing. yes, mr.? i'm a student from theinternational school of geneva and i was wondering if you'renot working and if we're not going insome sort of dead end because if it's not nuclear weapon,it might be another type of weapon
and obviously there had always beensome confusing, some empires for historythat were stronger than others and our own would bewalking bit on dead end because when we our going tostop nuclear weapon maybe we can have a newchemical weapon or a new technological weapon which is going to bethe same problem and as usual it's going to bethe more wide oriented country which we're going to have itand the more rich country
who are going to have it? so that is my question. do you think nuclear weaponcan bring the peace because peace by fear andif the nuclear weapon disappear we can have another -another fear? well, obviously a very justifiedin asking that question. i think the step of disarmingnuclear weapons is something it could be extendedto weapons of mass destruction on the whole and there have beenreal signs of progress
on chemical and biological weaponsof recent years and it can take up - it can takes decades to reduceweapons stock because they're actually difficult to the technical aspects ofsuch disarmament. well, i think that the possibilityof an asymmetrical relation is something we need to takeinto account but let me to refer to the third stepwhat gareth evans was talking about namely monitoring by civil society and it's important to be ableto bring pressure
to buy and provide checks and balancesfor the political processes. but it's an absolutely legitimate question,you have to believe, however, in being something positivefor humanity and that it will be possible tofollow the path what has been outlined bymr. evans. yes, i'd just like to add that there's this thing called amutually a short destruction mad and that actually is the thingthat is giving the peace between india and pakistantoday.
mr. evans or mrs. salpy? can i just -- but certainly you first.no, you first. i think -- i think we need to lookat the whole question of a comprehensive security. and at the same time we cannot talkabout disarmament without addressing the whole questionof militarism head on. we also have to address issuesof social justice and why are people resorting to weapons,be nuclear weapons, be conventional weapons orwhatever
and the kind of world i would like to live in is if they wereno weapons at all, if there were no armies at allbut it's up to us and i know that was an extremelyna�ve for some. you're raising it's up to us. i think so.i think at the end of the day weapons are made by humans andthey can be also destroyed by humans. it's a mindset change. we can -- i mean i've workedwith churches,
what the peace churches whorefuse in absolute ways to go at the same time. i'm orthodox and i havemy churches who would say that no we sanctify going to war. so, --and we're talking about churches. we see the division within thatchristian family were at alone outside in society. so, there are those who believeand it would work and i don't believe that those peoplewho believe that we could live,
we could have a world without armiesand weapons are na�ve. they were actually much, much boldthan those who said that they could go. leave it for you.-yeah. can i just say it with the utmostto kindness. i think that had -is an illusion. perhaps if alone hope becausewe have to recognize what humans can do. we'll get to that. well, just a couple of furtheranswers
to what was very good question. i mean i think one going beyondthe knees to be brought in mind is that nuclear weapons areuniquely inhumane, uniquely indiscriminate,uniquely destructive. it's only nuclear weaponsat present that can actually destroy life onthis planet. it might be possible sometimesin the future the biological weapons would acquirethat capability, certainly there a hell of a lot more scarythan chemical weapons.
but it's nuclear weapons tooright up there alongside climate change actuallyis the one great public policy issue, two great public policy issues thatcan actually destroy this world as we know and that's a reasonfor being particularly obsessive i think about nuclear weapons. the second point to make is thatthe sort of general pessimism on what's the point of doingall these stuff because you can't uninvent weapons and human natures are always goingto be wanting to use the most powerful
and ugly weapon available and if not next maybe it willbe biological. i think you've got to bear in mindthat even though you can't uninvent anythingyou can outlaw it and i think we've beenpretty successful isn't it the international communityan outlawing chemical weapons. i was involved in those negotiations. australia brought them finallyto conclusion then we solved the problemof verification
with the world's nuclear industry. a biological weapon which ministers mentioned is equally a conventionout there which does outlaw them and it's got considerable amountof the buying by the whole world except a few...states that, you know, we worried about. the big problem with biological weaponsis that a verification because you can do it all fora lot damage, was stopped produced on a...
i want verification strategiesfor that. it's just very deep. so, it's a real risk but we are neverto abandon the effort to rid the world at leastof the worst categories of weapons while knowing that we are nevergoing to completely disarmed even though that's a un objectiveas rule. you want to ask something?very shortly, yeah. wait, wait.wait for the microphone. we just saw the use of chemical weaponduring the israeli war, so i don't think it was a realsuccess to my eyes?
well, that's still contestedof course and there's always an issue about,you know, as a right control weapons whether they probably regardedas outlaw or under the convention or not. all i am saying is there isan international norm of a great deal of force and convictionwhich is out there on chemical weapons and a pretty good by any accountverification system as much as of this stuff canonly be done by industrial scale applicationsand the system that that now exist
for keeping an eye on what majorindustry players are doing is pretty good. but, you know, none of these thingsare totally full proven. a lot of question.we want to begin -- yeah, yeah. this question is forthe gentleman mr. defense. you mentioned that you wouldfind to avoid a nuclear arms raised and releasedby stopping iran from crying nuclear weapons but i think that's what misleadingbecause clearly nuclear arms raised and the release doesn'twant israel acquire nuclear weapons
really basically and the internationalcommunity decided to ignore that completelyand he said instead of imposing sanctions even increased i mean the treatysupporting cleaning germany of having weapons to israel as if israelneeded even more means to destroy its neighbors. my question is why has theinternational communities try to ignore this clearly the biggestrisk of nuclear escalation at least in the region and inthe world? is it because of assassin guilt
that will take you another 50 yearsto overcome? well, i had some questionand i'll happily try to answer what you're implying withyour question is that the nuclear arms right hasalready begun initiated by israel. well, yes is iran is trying to getthe weapon because and the fact that israel has theweapon but that's not the logic that iwould follow. iran is not following that logicand if that were true through egypt, saudi arabia, other countrieswill already have the nuclear weapon.
so please think about this because it's avery severe judgment. yeah. i'd like to answer.i think you're very right. where do you think that the fundscame for pakistan to acquire this nuclear technology? is it in pakistan at defense and i'm not going to name the countriesbut they came from those countries that feared that israel wouldhave the weapon and they felt that pakistan was...
wants a development so they didgive them the funds. so, in a way they did -israel's acquirement of nuclear weapons did produced an arms list of sortand not between israel and pakistan but in the region. well, you could continue this debatefor a long time. i don't think we should bugged down if one feels that it's a right for hisrail to be -- to have nuclear arms then it should -they should state that they have them because they should formalizethat position and commit themselves
if necessary to disarmament but i think it's not very usefulto look for the courses behind it. there are always supportsfor the armament and disarmament efforts of different statesincluding israel, including pakistan as you've saidwith regard to nuclear armament. you have to deal with the factand then be able to respond to the fact. but the question says the moderatoris why does some countries have the right to have nuclear weaponsand other is not? that's the question. well, as we've said some countriesclearly in this evening
some represented on the podiumhave simply grabbed the right for themselves and have got a waywith it so far just to put things simply. another question, yeah? hello, i'm a student from the internationalschool of geneva and i have a question for -- a little bit louder please.excuse me we have difficulty to hear. i have a question for mr. evans. you were talking earlier aboutthe fact that one of the biggest to the - to proliferation or to non-proliferationwas the potential capability
of non-state actors to obtainnuclear weapons. yet the npt states quite clearlythat it has the right to obtain nuclear technologyfor peaceful means and i was wondering how it is possibleto reconcile nuclear technology acquired for peaceful means andproliferation? well, i mean -- mr. evans? that's what the whole theory ofthe non-proliferation treaty is about that parties to the treaty
submit to inspections monitoringsafeguards to ensure there will be no diversionof that material or technology to non peaceful purposes and that's what the whole argumentof course had been about in iran as to whether iran has honoredthat commitment out of the treaty or is in fact breached it. but by in large we've done pretty wellover the years in terms of keeping the norm weaponstates have been the beneficiaries of technology in material honestin this respect.
now, in the cases that i've,you know, gone wrong are the ones that we -the ones that we know about but i think we could be -what we do have to do in the context of this forthcoming npt review conferenceis to really work very hard to get agreement, however,on strengthening some aspects of that regime. it badly needs strengtheningin terms of stronger monitoring and verification mechanismsto think all the additional protocol which everybody really must sign upto which gives much more
wide ranging inspection pass. and there's also the need for tougher,tougher sanctions and provisions to deal with those countriesthat shelter under the legal protection of the npt while acquiring the capabilityto walk away from it thumbing their nose of everybody else. seen that with north koreawe maybe seeing it with iran at the moment and there's a lot of deeperunhappiness in the international community but -- and all these thingsare on the agenda.
the other thing that's on the agendais the whole question nuclear security and the control in locking down ofweapons and materials stock piles and so all around the world to ensurethat we can have higher confidence levels than nowthat they won't be accessed by non-state actors among othersand that is exactly what this obama nuclear summit is aboutin april, it's on this issues of nuclear securityand again from the europeans and others there is a very strongcommitment to doing even more than is upthere at the moment to achieve that result.
(speaking in foreign language) well, yes i think i would reallyunderline that. it might be surprising but i agreeon many, many points with what mr. evans has been saying. the npt system is in a crisis ofcredibility and there is the opportunity nowwhich has to be grasped and it's necessary to pursuemore international norms. now the question that's been askedfrom the floor is what about civil use? well, i think the need for energywill increase
and there will be a demand fornuclear energy. now whether you agree or not, many people are going to seekto do that and there are free - rather voluntary commitments suchas the psi initiative which are provided for inthe treaties which states can voluntaryparticipating and that needs to be part of the legalstructure but there needs to be more efforts there. the review conference first of allneeds to be exercised
otherwise the whole systemwill collapse. yes, you've waited long time toask your question. my name is tom,i'm a german student in austria but i'm from the united statesand my question would be mainly be for... minister guttenbergbut anybody else could answer as well. i've spent seven and a half yearsin the united states navy and they have one of the most powerfulnuclear arsenals on earth. what -- but we pretty much doat the civilians tell us to do. my question is, is it ever morallyjustified to use a nuclear weapon
and if so, what is your criteria formaking your decision? is it a religious decision?is it a political decision? what defines your morality? a very big question. yeah.after, you can answer too. yeah. well, the perspective from a countrywhich is not a nuclear power but which is part of an alliance whichhas nuclear weapons. i have to say that i would havehuge moral problems with the use of this weapon. however, i can accept possessing suchweapons as deterrents.
something? yes, i just want to add that whilewalking up, gareth evans just informed methat he's about six months older than me. he's 65 and i'm going to be 65in july but i fought two wars and wheni fight a war and i don't think many in this roomi've done, you see a lot of blood and goreand your friends dying around you and you don't want to fight awar again. you don't want people to dieand that is why
i'm one of the greatest advocates ofpeace between india and pakistan and i've do a lot in that respect. but if you want to talk with moralityof it then i'll give you an answerwhich i gave to an indian television many years ago and he post the questionthat we get there and we cut you off at this,what will you do? i thought it sometime and i said,"we will use a nuclear weapon." if it is a question of our survivalthen we have no choice, right.
so, at that point of thenyou have to question yourself whether you want to be extinctor be moral, right. both. so i think at that point of timeyou decide that you know morality takes a backseat andsurvival takes the front seat. can i? mrs. weiderud? the christian tradition is clearlycommitted to the sanctity of human life and anything that would destroyhuman life or all forms of creation
is something that cannot -is something that would be condemned. nuclear weapons violate thoseprinciples because they indiscriminate the history of human life as we know it. churches are not alone inupholding the sanctity of human life, they're not the only ones. i mean there is something we've seenall world religions and the principle that christian churcheswould use is do unto others what you wouldwant others to do to you. you don't want others to usenuclear weapons against you,
so why use it against the others. so, would use it totally -totally opposite argument to -- but war destroys human life too? pardon me? yeah, correct, correctand that's also - morally that's also somethingto be -- i want to answer that question. i was brought up in a conventof the muslim. but i was brought up in a convent and when i first went to warand that my sister marylo
can i just add one more? one more point to this. i think if you accept the logicof nuclear deterrents you're stuck in the positionthat has been articulated. you cannot be preparedto use nuclear weapons. i sat just last week in atlantawith president jimmy carter when he was asked this questionat a small conference and he said and jimmy carteras you know i s the most morally complete personyou could possibly imagine
whose inconceivable to imagine him,you know, being morally able to coerceestruction as go but by pressing the button - he said this was the hottestsingle dilemma of his presidency because he knew he hadthe ultimate responsibility of pressing that buttonthat the circumstances arise and he knew that for deterrentcredibility to be sustained against russia, he had to be prepared to not onlysay that he pressed that button if there was an attack but he have to be prepared topress the button.
so, he went through all the agonizingstages of this logical dilemma and moral dilemma that you'vearticulate and came up with that resultand i don't think we can test it. but the further pointi want to make is for god's sake that let's acceptat face value anymore, the whole logic of nuclear deterrent certainly not as between the majornuclear arm states. i mean there is -there is an issue for those states in pakistan and israel,
pakistan particularly is the classicexample of a state that is subject to potentiallyoverwhelming a conventional capability against itbut do we have to accept that face value, the argument that small number ofnuclear weapons or capacity to wreck some havocon the other side will work as a deterrent againstconventional warfare? do we have to accept the inextricableapparent logic of that? or can we be just a little more confident in asserting that we are actually learningfrom the ravages of the past?
there's not much to be gainedby military action in warfare and maybe there are few more -- yeah, make is short -- maybe -maybe just maybe there are more inhibitionsoperating out there that will stop people using nuclear weaponseven if on the face that seems to be an existentialissue. you want to add something? remember that nuclear weaponswere not used in korea
or not used in a whole of varietyof cases when they could have beenin the past and every decision makersever written about this who was in these situations they just said the notion of actuallyusing nuclear weapons when it came to a john foster dallasis on record is saying as for god's sake is just the taboois very intense. so, in a sense it's a little bit of an issuebut i do understand it crams dilemma and we got to be kind to him.
yeah but the point is that we got it we estimated that the amount ofthe nuclear weapons in india their killers are about five times over. so, over the first time you lose count,how many times they'll kill you, you know. so, you know you start worrying about itafter the first time they kill you. you're waiting for your question. hello, my name is valeria. my name is valeria and icame from germany. at the moment i live in...and i studied there.
now, my question is that in the pastwe knew that iraq had atomic weapons and they would destroy with newfrom iran, pakistan, north korea that they were striving for nuclear armament. they shouldn't be doing it. well, so what happened that basisbeen destroyed? why on - why is the military attractiontaking action to destroy them? well, to date i cannot give any proofthat iraq had nuclear weapons or wanted to have nuclear weapons
that a was justification in whichwas used to certain ends and we're dealing with the resultsof those justifications today and it's difficult -- quite rightlyit's difficult and when we look at the resultsof the actions that were taken, i would be extremely wearyin using the same approach to other situations and i believe that such an approachwould simply lead to a conflagration well, i share that viewabsolutely the whole variety of reasons. i mean one, nobody can be sureprecisely where our facilities are located?
what's buried on the mountainsand so on and the notion that you get upa complete knocking out of the iranian capability throughlimited focus to strike is simply nonsensical. nobody has got that degree of confidence. the most you could almost certainlydo would be to slow down the development of such a program for significant periodtwo, three, four years but in the scheme of thingsthere's not a lot significance. a second point to make is you would unquestionably beuniting the entire iranian population
against you. whatever else we knowabout the different currents of repining that are running inthat country, we do know that they are unitedin the sort of the pride factor about this thing extraordinarilybut in the context of an external attack this is just an absolutely given. you'd have the entire nation upand ups. and thirdly, the consequences i thinkfor the region in the wider international communitywould be devastating.
we know a bit about howterrorist actors can be unleashed on the world. we know a bit about the sophisticationof the country in question and i think it would be socomprehensively counter productive but it would be... toso act. at the same time we got tokeep hoping the notion that should iran actually acquirenuclear weapons and should there be credibleevidence of some intent to use them? of course you can't exclude thenthe possibility of a preemptive strike
even though, you know, again theconsequences would be pretty alarming. we have time for a last questionwho want to -- yeah please mr.? my name is fernando roistand i came from switzerland. my question is to mr. evans andmr. guttenberg. i think it's right to say thatscientists have led us to this path and scientist can perhaps save usfrom it. i think that the issue of energyis one of the key ones. perhaps we could set a goodexample here. germany has been a bit of a pioneerin renewable energies.
maybe if we went down that road,it would lead to a certain level of imitation. now, nobody has attacked pakistan.maybe pakistan could also set an example. say, we have acquired nuclear weaponsbut we've become convinced of a new view namelythat we are looking into the possibility of renewable energies and we're looking for partnersand then you might find that a lot of people in the world willhear your voice? well, on the question of renewableenergies, if we can do without atomic energyand replace that with renewable energy
then i would be the first personto support that and it means to achieve that objective. however, at the moment our energyrequirements cannot yet to be covered without contribution of nuclear energy,nuclear power. and if we were to do a way with it,we'd be dependent on others until we could provide,cover on needs with renewable energy. maybe things like this need to becomecovered by conferences like copenhagen. what i'm particularly impressed byor what i've been particularly struck by over the last few months was the failurein copenhagen.
that doesn't mean that we're goingto give it up. what it means is we're going to needtechnologies which make us dependent on others,who would need a certain levels of security, high levels of security, notcomplete energy security but that's a fact that needs to betaken into account in this process. war without nuclear weaponis perhaps the most acute challenge given today to the internationalcommunity. well, i think this debatecan be summarized in that way and we can close with those words.
so, thank you very much to all ofour panelists. we have andre schneiderwho's the general director of the world economic forumwho is going to come up and thomas wipf who wished tosay something. mr. schneider? thank you very much.on behalf of the sek and the world economic forumi'd like to thank all of the participants in the panel and also thank all of thepeople who've come this evening. without you there wouldn't be so rich,so multilayered, so lively.
i think we've been really blessedwith the people who've come young, middle age and old at allof our discussions. i think it was a really important contribution. open forum has been a successagain this year. we hope to see you all againnext year at the open forum. i hope we will discuss moreinteresting issues and look forward to seeing you there. thank you very muchand have a good evening. and thank you mr. schneiderand thomas wipf
who is the president of the federationof swiss evangelical churches. mr. wipf, do you wish to say anything?no, you don't want to say anything? okay, you simply wanted to saythank you to everybody and so well i thank you toall for our guests. thank you to youand have a wonderful evening. good bye.