UNITED NATIONS (AP) – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that the world was living in “the shadow of a nuclear disaster” due to growing mistrust and tensions between nuclear powers.
The UN chief said in a high-level meeting to celebrate the recent International Day for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons that progress on nuclear disarmament had “stalled and is in danger of falling behind.” And he said tensions between nuclear-armed countries. Weapons “increased nuclear threats.”
Guterres, for example, has expressed deep concern over the growing controversy between the Trump administration and China. Relations between the US and Russia are at a low ebb. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are at loggerheads over Kashmir, and India just had a border clash with China. And North Korea boasts about its nuclear weapons.
Without naming any countries, Guterres said the programs of modernization of nuclear arsenals “threaten the race of qualitative nuclear weapons,” not to increase the number of weapons but to make them “faster, stealthier and more accurate.”
Guterres also noted that the only treaty limiting the size of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal – a new strategic arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia – is due to expire next year.
Both countries need to increase it without delay for a maximum of five years. Without the treaty, he said, “there is a worrying prospect of returning to uncontrolled strategic competition.”
The Secretary-General said the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, which marks its 30th anniversary this year, is the cornerstone of efforts to disarm and prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The five-year review of its implementation was postponed until next year due to the COVID-19 epidemic, and Guterres urged its 191 parties to use the extra time to strengthen the treaty, including “concrete progress toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.”
Guterres said he was also awaiting the entry into force of the first treaty banning nuclear weapons, which was adopted by 122 countries in July 2017. Once rat ratified, the treaty will come into force in 10 days and ratified by Malaysia on 30 September and is now 46.
At the high-level meeting on Friday, 103 of the 193 member states of the UN decided to speak for two minutes. But many spoke at length so delivered only 79 addresses, and the UN said it would post the rest.
Of the major nuclear powers, Russia and China were on the list of speakers, but found nothing to speak of. The United States, Britain and France withdrew from the meeting. North Korea and Israel have done the same, reportedly with nuclear arsenals but have never publicly acknowledged it. India and Pakistan were to speak, but only India was commented.
Many speakers recalled that the meeting took place 75 years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 210,000 people and ending World War II.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, whose country is still part of the 2015 agreement with Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, aimed at preventing the Islamic Republic from acquiring a nuclear weapon, said the meeting provided a unique opportunity to unite the world. . Liberate humanity from the nuclear nightmare. “
In brief prearranged remarks, Zarif accused the United States of “developing new nuclear weapons and recklessly lowering their deployment.” He said the United States had also hurt the NPT by illegally withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia on Missiles.
Zarif calls on U.S. for Israel He also slammed the support, “the only owner of a nuclear arsenal in our region.” He demanded that the international community “force Israel – which has so much aggression in its DNA – to gain immediate access to the NPT and destroy its nuclear arsenal” and submit to “the most intrusive surveillance regime”.
The Iranian minister also called on the General Assembly to “declare as a constitutional norm of international law that nuclear war cannot be won – and should never be fought,” and “develop a solid program for time-limited nuclear disarmament.”
“Imagine if billions were spent on devices of global destruction, they were allocated to help in the fight against COVID-19,” Zarif said.
Indian External Affairs Minister Harsh Vardhan Sringala reiterated the country’s long-standing commitment to nuclear disarmament through a step-by-step process and said that all nuclear-weapon states need to have “meaningful dialogue” to build trust and confidence.
Despite the “devastating humanitarian consequences” of the atomic bombing, Sweden’s foreign minister, Anne Linde, said “the nuclear threat is present as always and multilateralism is under heavy pressure.”
“Polarization and lack of trust” is “a dangerous combination that we cannot ignore.”
Linde is a U.S. citizen. And called on Russia to make a fresh start immediately and welcomed the recent discussions on “a comprehensive, follow-up agreement, which may include China.”
Sweden has launched the Stockholm Initiative on Nuclear Disarmament with 15 non-nuclear nations, aimed at “building political support for a result-oriented disarmament agenda in the NPT framework,” he said, urging other countries to join the effort.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said “no significant progress” has been made by nuclear-weapon states in reducing their arsenals, and that “there is always a lack of widespread confidence in countries as a result of their current modernization efforts.”
He called for the implementation of the NPT, strengthening disarmament, early entry into the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and called on all nuclear-weapon states to join the Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.
Marsudi said maintaining nuclear weapons is clearly a zero-sum situation, while the complete elimination of such weapons would ensure that humanity prevails.
