Why Iran is crucial to a nuclear free Middle East

In an article on the US-Iran nuclear talks, London CND Chair Carol Turner argues that a nuclear weapons-free zone across the Middle East will be foundational for a stable peace in the region. 

Israel, the only nuclear weapons state in the region, continues to acknowledge its status and hasn’t signed or ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran is the only other Middle East country with the potential to become a nuclear weapons state in the foreseeable future. Its cooperation is essential to any practical steps towards a nuclear weapons-free Middle East.

Carol explains why President Trump’s decision in his first term of office, to withdraw the US from the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated by Barack Obama, was a big step backwards toward achieving that goal. She outlines the basis on which the current negotiations are now taking place, including the approach taken by Iran with the support of UN Security Council members China and Russia.

The article is available in full on the CND website. It is based on a recent CND webinar, held alongside the NPT Preparatory Committee in New York, with PSC Secretary Ben Soffa, Mark Curtis of Declassified UK and chaired by CND general secretary Sophie Bolt. 

You can watch the CND webinar here.

London CND joins new coalition: StopRearm Europe

StopRearm Europe

Concern is growing across Europe that increases in military spending are a precursor to rearmament in preparation for war. London CND has recently signed the call to action of this newly formed coalition. Like CND, the organisations taking part share our concern that moves to increase military spending are dramatically impacting welfare provisions by governments across the continent. 

The StopRearm Europe coalition was formed in response to rearmament moves by the European Parliament, and is supported by hundreds of local, national, and Europe-wide organisations. It reaches across Europe, and is growing  – from Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, and elsewhere. 

CND was one of the founders, along with our partner organisation, including Stop the War Coalition, Global Campaign on Military Spending (GCOMS) UK, and the International Peace Bureau. A week of global action is being organised. CND will be announcing details of activities in Britain, and London CND will be playing out part. Watch this space for details!

Call to Action

We oppose the EU’s plans to spend an extra €800 billion on arms. This will be €800 billion stolen. Stolen from social services, health, education, labour, peace building, international cooperation, from a just transition and climate justice. It will only benefit arms manufacturers in Europe, in the USA and elsewhere.

It will make war more likely, and the future less safe for everyone! It will generate more debt, more austerity, more borders. It will deepen racism. It will fuel climate change.  We do not need more weapons; we do not need to prepare for more wars. What we need is a totally different plan: real, social, ecological and common security for Europe and for the world.

Stand up against war!

Stop ReArm Europe!

Lakenheath Blockade Breaks the Silence on US Nukes Returning to Britain

CND Vice Chair, and London CND Chair, Carol Turner, reports on a successful blockade of Lakenheath last Saturday.

Originally featured in Labour Outlook

Despite government silence, news that US nuclear weapons are returning to Britain is at last beginning to get through. CND members from across the country gathered at the main gate of Lakenheath airbase to join a blockade which marked the end of a successful two-week peace camp, organised by the Lakenheath Alliance for Peace (LAP) coalition.

Lakenheath, in the heart of the Suffolk countryside, has the biggest presence of US military forces in Britain – exposing its less than honest claim to be an RAF base. Lakenheath hosts the US Airforce 48th Fighter Wing, tasked with providing ‘worldwide responsive combat airpower and support’ which is ‘capable of dominating any adversary’.

Palestinians are among the so-called adversaries the US forces based there are currently helping to ‘dominate’. F35 bombers fly from Lakenheath, in support of Israel’s attacks on the Occupied territories.

LAP activities during the April peace camp included a War Crimes and Genocide Day highlighting the complicity of the US, UK, and NATO in Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza. Past attacks from Lakenheath include Libya in 1986 and combat missions against Afghanistan from 2001 and Iraq in 2023. Other peace camp activity days included an international conference attended by guests from across Europe and beyond, and a Greenham Women day.

Around 250 people took part in the blockade on Saturday 26 April, including two CND coaches from London. An impressive list of banners. I recall seeing them from Wales, York, Plymouth, Quakers, London Peace Pagoda – including nearby Norwich and Cambridge.

Fine weather and a carnival atmosphere notwithstanding, there were seven arrests from among those who chose not to heed the police call to disperse at the end of the afternoon.

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said nuclear weapons don’t make us safer, they make us a target. She expressed solidarity with those arrested after the successful three-hour shut down of the main entrance to the base. “Rather than arresting people for peacefully protesting the return of US nuclear weapons to Britain,” Sophie said, “the clear violations of international law facilitated by the British government should be investigated.“

Visit CND for more information on US nuclear weapons coming to Britain and what you can do.

Lakenheath Alliance for Peace is a coalition of local, national, and international groups dedicated to preventing the return of US nuclear weapons to Lakenheath. LAP holds monthly vigils at the base.

Click here for photos from the day.