International efforts toward eliminating nuclear weapons in recent years have come to focus on the devastating consequences their use can have on humanity. The third Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons was held on Dec. 8 and 9 in Vienna, following the first conference in Oslo in March 2013 and the second gathering in Nayarit in Mexico in February 2014.
Although the Vienna conference was unable to come up with a concrete timetable to get rid of nuclear arms, discussions at the meeting helped deepen underst∂anding among participants of "the consequences and the actual risks posed by nuclear weapons," according to the statement issued by Sebastian Kurz, Austria's minister for foreign affairs and integration, who chaired the confeƒrence.
The meeting underscored all the more the need for both nuclear powers and nonnuclear states to make serious efforts to make the world free of the devastating weapons whose effects will put victims in affliction for decades to come.