Prague:
US President Barack Obama on Sunday launched an effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons, calling them "the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War" and saying the US has a moral responsibility to lead as the only nation ever to have used one.
In a speech driven with new urgency by North Korea's rocket launch just hours earlier, Obama said the US would "immediately and aggressively" seek ratification of a comprehensive ban on testing nuclear weapons.
He said the US would host a summit within the next year on reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons, and he called for a global effort to secure nuclear material.
"Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be checked, that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction," Obama said to a huge crowd in a square outside the Prague Castle gates.
"This fatalism is a deadly adversary," he said. "For if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable."
Obama at one point targeted his comments directly at North Korea, which launched a rocket late Saturday night in defiance of the international community. The president was awakened by an aide and told of the news, which occurred in the early morning hours in Prague.
In a speech driven with new urgency by North Korea's rocket launch just hours earlier, Obama said the US would "immediately and aggressively" seek ratification of a comprehensive ban on testing nuclear weapons.
He said the US would host a summit within the next year on reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons, and he called for a global effort to secure nuclear material.
"Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be checked, that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction," Obama said to a huge crowd in a square outside the Prague Castle gates.
"This fatalism is a deadly adversary," he said. "For if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable."
Obama at one point targeted his comments directly at North Korea, which launched a rocket late Saturday night in defiance of the international community. The president was awakened by an aide and told of the news, which occurred in the early morning hours in Prague.
