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Africa: The Budapest Memorandum On Giving Up Nuclear Weapon

On December 5th 1994, the United States, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom, along with China and France in a separate document, signed the now infamous "Budapest Memorandum", the document was supposed to be an assurance to Ukraine that if it acknowledged the non-nuclear proliferation treaty and gives up its nuclear materials, then those world powers will guarantee its (Ukraine's) national security protection, and thus it wouldn't have to worry about foreign invasion.

Interestingly, Ukraine is not the only nation that got invaded by a global power after giving up its nuclear materials, remember that Iraq destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon development as required by the United Nations Security Council resolution around 1991.

And Libya voluntarily abolished its chemical and biological weapons program in 2003 after reaching an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),

But the United States and its allies invaded Iraq and Libya within a decade after giving up their nuclear materials, eventually resulting in the deaths of Sadam Hussein and Muhammad Ghaddafi.

While we believe that the world would be a better place without nuclear weapons in the hands of dictators, it is a reasonable argument that the actions of the world's most powerful nations in ignoring the Budapest memorandum, as well as invading Iraq and Libya, has contributed substantially to the desires of several nations to pursue nuclear programs, thus making the world a much more dangerous place.

For the world to become a much safer place, the leaders of nations must act with more honesty and urgency towards nuclear non-proliferations, stakeholders must genuinely uphold their end of the bargain and beware at all times that the actions they take today will influence the direction of several negotiations and the fate of future generations, what resulted from the Budapest memorandum must never again be allowed to happen to any nation.

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