Tel. +1-202-234-9382 x206 (office)

Bennis commented: “The summit ignored one of the most important potential avenues for ensuring nuclear safety: the creation of an ever-expanding network of nuclear weapons-free zones. Given the tensions in the Middle East, creating a Middle East NWFZ would be a crucial step -- preventing any new nuclear weapons in the region and requiring Israel to acknowledge, place under immediate international supervision and quickly abolish its existing nuclear arsenal. The US should implement its existing commitment to create a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East, which would include nuclear weapons, and which the US already initiated and agreed to in Article 14 of the UN Security Council resolution ending the Gulf War in 1991.”

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Her most recent book is Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer (2010).