{"id":261761,"date":"2017-08-30T18:49:56","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T22:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/?p=261761"},"modified":"2020-11-30T10:27:09","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T15:27:09","slug":"german-foreign-minister-joins-calls-to-withdraw-us-nukes-from-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/german-foreign-minister-joins-calls-to-withdraw-us-nukes-from-the-country\/","title":{"rendered":"German Foreign Minister joins calls to withdraw US nukes from the country"},"content":{"rendered":"
RAEL\u2019S COMMENT:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
Wonderful! And all countries should do the same, especially Japan!<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s top diplomat has backed the suggestion of Social Democrat (SPD) leader and Chancellor hopeful Martin Schulz, who has pledged to rid his country of US nukes. Washington, meanwhile, is pressing ahead to modernize its nuclear stockpile.<\/p>\n

Sigmar Gabriel’s remarks came at the end of his official visit to the US Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly, I am convinced that it is important to finally talk again about the arms control and disarmament,\u201d Gabriel told the DPA news agency, as quoted by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I think that Martin Schulz’s words that in the end we need to get rid of the nuclear weapons in our country, are right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, Schulz, the SDP candidate for Chancellor, pledged to get rid of the US nukes if elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs German Chancellor\u2026 I will champion for the withdrawal of the nuclear weapons stationed in Germany,\u201d Schulz said in Trier addressing a campaign rally. \u201cTrump wants nuclear armament. We reject it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are some 20 US B61 nukes stored at the Buechel Air Base in Germany, according to estimates by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).<\/p>\n

The issue of US nuclear weapons storage on German soil has been raised by top officials in the past. In 2009, then-German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the B61 stockpile in Germany was a \u201cmilitary obsolete\u201d and urged the US to remove the weapons.<\/p>\n

Senior Russian officials have expressed similar attitudes toward the US’ \u201cCold War relics\u201d still deployed in Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican nuclear weapons in Germany are relics of the Cold War, for a long time they do not serve the implementation of any practical tasks and are subject to being thrown down the dustbin of history,\u201d Sergey Nechayev, chief of the Russian foreign ministry\u2019s department responsible for relations with Germany said in December 2016.<\/p>\n

The US, meanwhile, is upgrading its B61 bombs, some 200 of which are stored in Europe. The non-nuclear assembly of the new B61-12 modification was successfully tested for the second time earlier this month.<\/p>\n

It is expected to have significantly expanded capabilities, which might raise the likelihood of it being unleashed, according to politicians and military experts. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump proposed a $1 trillion program to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal, claiming the US had\u00a0\u201cfallen behind on nuclear weapon capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in August, Gabriel attacked Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ruling party for following the\u00a0\u201cdictate\u201d\u00a0of Trump and wanting to\u00a0\u201cdouble Germany\u2019s military spending.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, the German Chancellor promised to do her best to increase spending on NATO, following Trump\u2019s demand for member states to spend their\u00a0\u201cfair share\u201d\u00a0of 2 percent GDP on defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs opposed to the times of the East-West confrontation, those conflicts and wars are far more difficult to foresee and manage,\u201d\u00a0Gabriel\u00a0wrote\u00a0in an op-ed for the Rheinische Post newspaper.\u00a0\u201cThe question is: how do we respond? The answer by US President Donald Trump is to arm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to spend more than \u20ac70 billion on arms per year upon Trump\u2019s and Merkel\u2019s will,\u201d\u00a0Gabriel wrote, adding that it would not improve the situation anywhere.\u00a0\u201cEvery German soldier who is deployed overseas tells us that there\u2019s no security and stability that can be reached through weapons or military force.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/401492-gabriel-germany-us-nukes\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAEL\u2019S COMMENT: Wonderful! And all countries should do the same, especially Japan!  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":285209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}