NEWYORK: A United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on working towards a nuclear-weapon-free-world on Wednesday called on Pakistan, India and Israel to voluntarily drop their nuclear weapons, said a report by Business Standard.
The report further stated that the resolution was passed to achieve a nuclear weapon-free world and the three nations were called upon to comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) unconditionally as non-nuclear-weapon states.
The resolution also asked Pakistan, India and Israel to keep their nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, meaning they must also give up their ability to manufacture nuclear weapons. The United States joined India in voting against this part of the resolution and Pakistan and Israel also voted against this provision. Meanwhile, France, Britain and Bhutan abstained from voting.
The provision was passed with 165 votes in the 193-member UNGA, with 21 countries absent.
Britain, Israel, North Korea and Russia also joined the US and India in voting against the overall resolution, but it passed with 169 votes, While Pakistan, China, Bhutan, Micronesia and Palau abstained from voting.
The report also states that this resolution and similar ones, are not binding under the UN Charter and are symbolic in nature. It mentions that in another resolution, the UNGA asked nations to take strong measures against terrorists having access to weapons of mass destruction.
One more resolution called for lowering the operational readiness of nuclear weapons to reduce international tension. According to the resolution, several thousand nuclear weapons have remained on high alert even after the end of the cold war. The resolution requested the five nuclear states to re-analyse the nuclear doctrines and take actions to lower the risk of the use of nuclear weapons.
