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3 July 1995
Mister President,
The International Peace Research Association wishes to express its strong displeasure at your decision to resume testing at Mururoa and Fangatuafa Atolls in French Polynesia. Our reasons for this are as follows:
(1) It represents a further erosion of the nuclear testing oratorium and makes it difficult for the nuclear weapon states to exert moral pressure on China in relation of its testing programme.
(2) It is stimulating a desire within the United States nuclear weapons establishment to resume a testing programme (either in Nevada or within one of the nuclear weapons laboratories).
(3) It complicates the negotiating climate for a comprehensive test ban treaty and may have a very negative dynamic on those negotiations within the Conference on Disarmament.
(4) It raises serious questions about the Chapter VI commitments made by the nuclear weapon states at the April 1995 Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and will undoubtedly generate new anxiety among non nuclear weapon states about the short and long term nuclear intentions of the nuclear powers.
(5) The decision is contrary to majority public opinion and the stated preferences of all South Pacific States and undermines the more positive position adopted by France over the past four years.
(6) It sends exactly the wrong signal to those countries contemplating crossing the nuclear threshold. For these and more basic humanitarian and environmental reasons we ask you to reconsider your decision and rejoin the nuclear testing moratorium.
Yours sincerely
Signed
Prof. Dr. Kevin Clements
Dr. h.c. Karlheinz Koppe
President Secretary General
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