SNP MP Douglas Chapman has backed an open letter to Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin on the “no first use” of nuclear weapons policy.
The pledge has also been endorsed globally by more than one thousand political, military and religious leaders, representatives of civic society, academia and science including Chapman and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) co-chair and Glasgow Anniesland SNP MSP, Bill Kidd.
It calls for the presidents “to declare a joint commitment that your nations will not use nuclear weapons first under any circumstances and to make this a key step forward to fulfilling the UN goal to totally eliminate nuclear weapons from the planet”.
Chapman, who represents Dunfermline and West Fife, said: “I am delighted to endorse this letter along with my fellow SNP colleague, Bill Kidd MSP, and join with a host of leaders and representatives to highlight the utter futility of nuclear weaponry and the threat of annihilation to humanity.
"Given that both Russia and the USA hold over 90% of the world’s military arsenals, it is vital that their leaders take this symbolic and practical step back from the arms race and forward to peace.
"In Scotland, we feel we are very much on the 'front line' with Europe’s largest nuclear weapons arsenal on our doorstep at Faslane. We have to use every diplomatic channel we have at our disposal to make our voices heard at the highest level to reduce and then eliminate the nuclear weapons risk.”
On Wednesday Biden and Putin met for a crisis summit in Geneva, the first top level US-Russia meeting since Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. It was hoped the presidents would use the meeting to reduce tensions between the two countries and initiate measures for nuclear risk-reduction.
Chapman added: “It seems ludicrous, perverse and dangerous to increase spending on these kinds of weapons when we are smack bang in the middle of a global pandemic, desperately rushing to save lives.
“Peace, not nuclear carnage, must come first.”
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