Thank you very much, Mr. Khan.
First, on “weight”, what I meant was that the Canadian government should speak at the highest levels, go to the highest levels—the Prime Minister, the foreign minister. The full exposition of the policy of the Government of Canada on this subject is very much needed.
On the security, it's pretty clear that nuclear weapons cannot be used and have not been able to stop the wars that have taken place over the past 30 or 40 years.
On India and Pakistan, the presence of nuclear weapons in both countries, in my view, exacerbates the situation rather than having an ameliorative effect. We have moved beyond a period when any one nation can hope to guarantee its own security by an overpowering military might, including nuclear weapons. Modern history is replete with examples of this.
And with respect to being naïve in aspiring to a nuclear-weapons-free world, this is not just a sermon or a homily; it is a legal requirement under the non-proliferation treaty. All states are obliged to pursue negotiations toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
Moreover, from a political point of view, it is totally impractical to think that in the 21st century we can go on with the status quo, the status quo being defined as a number of states holding to themselves the right to have nuclear weapons while proscribing their acquisition by any other state. It's simply not working.
In the words of Kofi Annan, the recently departed Secretary-General, we are “sleepwalking” toward a catastrophe.
I cited the four prominent American statesmen—Shultz, Kissinger, Perry, and Nunn—who, in a remarkable piece in the Wall Street Journal, said that the time has now come for a nuclear-weapons-free world and to pursue this by certain steps that need to be taken.
No one thinks that the abolition of nuclear weapons can occur overnight. That's not the idea. It is the refusal of the major states to start heading down that avenue in a concrete, practical manner that is destabilizing the international regime today and weakening the non-proliferation treaty, which is the single best guarantee we have against nuclear warfare.