Jean Chretien, Former Canadian Prime Minister and Co-Chairman of The InterAction Council (IAC) at end of the three-day Plenary Meeting in Manama told the closing Press conference that acquiring a nuclear bomb capability was one of the most useless achievements in the present time.
“We will perhaps never use atomic bomb and if any country tries to venture on this path will be destroyed with 10 minutes,” the former Canadian Premier warned, adding in the past many nations had developed nuclear bombs as deterrent.
The communiqué issued by the IAC looked at the Syrian crisis and said that over 70,000 refugees lost their lives and those that remain face poor access to water, healthcare and limited opportunities to education and recreation. The Euro crises have calmed, but the inequity of untaxed income in offshore accounts and its effect in prosperity not reaching the grassroots threatens, the meeting said.
The youth unemployment is growing across the globe, but the solutions are limited. Fertile grounds for unrest, as a result of the dissatisfaction of a generation has resulted from the unemployment of this section, in both Europe and the Middle East. Containing and curbing unemployment and poverty in Africa is essential and for this the market access to EU and other developed economies has to open, it said.
Looking at the successful examples of cooperation, the council said the Gulf Cooperation Council secured the member states against threats such as external aggression, terrorism and other destablising acts.
The IAC called on Israel to halt construction and expansion of new settlements in Palestinian territories and East Jerusalem and conformity to the 2004 Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice regards the wall. A matrix of settler only roads and network of checkpoints stifle economic and political life in the Palestinian territories, it said. Pressure should be exerted to make Israel remove the settlements and the infrastructure that supports them.
On the nuclear issues facing the globe the IAC recommended that the implementation of the Non Proliferation Treaty 2010 (NPT) Action Plan on the Middle East be implemented without any further delay. All states in the region, including Iran and Israel must be urged to participate in a Middle East conference on NPT.
The council welcomed the fatwa by Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei on nuclear weapons, and said that country should fully implement its safeguards agreement and engage with the IAEA. Israel and others who are not NPT members should be urged to join. Good faith offers should be made to Iran to help develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes when that country has complied with international obligations.
“The nations of the world should look at exploiting solar energy, the unending source, for its energy.”