New York (12th June, 2018) – Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) welcomes the Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) issued earlier today at the Singapore Summit.

PGA views this Joint Statement as providing an important foundation on which both countries can now rapidly develop and progress specific, time-framed commitments in order to achieve sustainable peace and prosperity between the two countries.

PGA also welcomes in this Statement the Reaffirmation by DPRK of the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration and its commitment to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Background

In 1984, Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) played a central and instrumental role in developing and organizing the Six-Nation, Five Continent Peace Initiative, led by the Heads of States and Governments of Argentina, Greece, India, Mexico, Sweden and Tanzania. This PGA Initiative has been widely credited with making an important contribution to the subsequent adoption of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 12 years later.  For The Six Nations Initiative, PGA received the first Indira Gandhi Peace Price in 1986.  In addition, PGA staff played an important early, analytical role in the genesis and evolution of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (CWC) and its Membership made contributions in securing numerous ratifications of the CWC, facilitating its entry into force. Consistent with its strong disarmament credentials, in December 2015 PGA launched its Global Parliamentary Campaign for Universality and Implementation of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. In the past 2.5 years, PGA Members have made decisive contributions leading to the ratification of the BWC by Liberia, Nepal, Samoa and, it is anticipated later in 2018, Niue and Tanzania. PGA Members also made important contributions to the recent ratification of the BWC by Cote d'Ivoire, Angola and Guinea. PGA Members in Latin America, Africa and Asia continue to take many important decisive steps to promote universality and full implementation of the BWC.