Pavel treads in Obama's nuclear footsteps

Barack Obama said in Prague in April 2009 that the existence of thousands of nuclear weapons was the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War. When he won the Nobel Peace Prize later that year, the Nobel Committee attached special importance to his vision of, and work for, a "world without nuclear weapons," an expression Obama used in his Prague speech three times. "As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon," Obama said, "the United States has a moral responsibility to act." It's now Czech Pres. Petr Pa­vel who is calling for nuclear disarmament. He told HN after visiting Japan that he sees nuclear weapons as one of the biggest threats but that we aren't very aware of this. What was used in Hiroshima 80 years ago is nothing compared to those that exist today, he said. He acknowledged, though, that we can't expect any willingness to address the disarmament issue, because superpower relations are at the freezing point. From today's perspective it's similar to Obama's empty Prague appeal, with the big difference that Pavel is stating clearly in advance that Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jingping are the obstacles.