‘Unilateral Action Likely’
New Delhi — Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou said Monday that he was prepared to “act unilaterally’ to remove U.S. nuclear weapons from Greece that was stationed there without approval from Parliament.
“The government of Greece is fully determined to eliminate all nuclear weapons from its territory,’’ Papandreou told a news conference at the end of a six nation summit conference on nuclear disarmament.
“Nuclear weapons were installed in Greece decades ago by the United States government without any official act by the Parliament of Greece,” he said.
“These weapons are not under the control of the Greek government but under the control of the United States government,”’ he said.
Papandreou said he was working with other nations on and near the Balkan Peninsula, including Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey, to declare the area a nuclear free zone.
He said whether or not talks with those nations on a nuclear free zone are successful, he still plans to have the U.S. weapons removed.
“I have officially informed the United States that if the Balkan initiative does not move rapidly enough by itself, then I shall act unilaterally,’ Papandreou said.
The Harvard educated Greek leader warned that failure to arrest the nuclear arms race would lead to catastrophe.
“At the rate at which armaments are being built today one can only hope that we can get through the 80s without a global confrontation,” he said.
Papandreou said the inevitable effect of marked increases in the speed and accuracy of nuclear weapons meant the nuclear powers had to ‘‘delegate the decision-making (for a nuclear strike) to lower levels in the military or to the computers.
“So we have reached the point where our right to life depends no longer on us, no longer on reason,’ he said.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 1, 1985
