All news

Ex-Soviet leader Gorbachev welcomes decision to award Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN

The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. Former president of the Soviet Union and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Mikhail Gorbachev welcomes the decision to award it to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

"The Nobel Committee has taken a very good decision. It should be constantly reminded what the nuclear weapon is and strive for its abolishment. A world without nuclear weapons - there cannot be any other goal!" says a statement published on the website of the International Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (the Gorbachev Foundation).

The former president reiterated that the joint statement signed by him and [US President] Ronald Reagan said that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought." "I am deeply concerned about the fact that military doctrines once again allow for the use of nuclear weapons," Gorbachev noted.

The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Norway's Nobel committee president Berit Reiss-Andersen said, "The organization is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons."

ICAN is a coalition of non-government organizations from more than a hundred countries that support prohibition of nuclear weapons. The Peace Prize, according to Alfred Nobel’s will, is awarded to a person who did "the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.".