OSLO, Norway – Breaking with tradition, nearly all ambassadors of the world’s nuclear powers will not attend this year’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony which honors efforts to ban atomic weapons, the Nobel Institute says.
During a meeting in the Norwegian capital last week, the United States, France and Britain all informed the Nobel Institute of their joint decision to be represented by their embassy’s second-in-charge.
(From L) Nuclear disarmament group ICAN coordinator Daniel Hogstan, executive director Beatrice Fihn and her husband Will Fihn Ramsay pose with a banner bearing the group’s logo after ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize for its decade-long campaign to rid the world of the atomic bomb as nuclear-fueled crises swirl over North Korea and Iran, on October 6, 2017 in Geneva. (AFP PHOTO / Fabrice COFFRINI)
“We are disappointed that the ambassadors from the United Kingdom, the United States and France won’t be there,” the head of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Beatrice Fihn tells AFP.
“They claim to be committed to a world without nuclear weapons, and they should be celebrating civil society’s work on the issue,” she says, regretting their “defensive” position, yet noting that it “shows that this treaty and the campaign is already having an impact on them.”
The Peace Prize was awarded on October 6 to ICAN, a coalition of non-governmental organizations lobbying for a treaty banning atomic weapons, which was signed in July by 122 countries though none of the nuclear powers.
ICAN will formally receive its prize at a lavish ceremony in Oslo on December 10.
— AFP
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