UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday sounded the alarm over the war in Ukraine, nuclear threats in Asia and the Middle East, and other tensions, saying that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”
The warning came as a COVID-19 pandemic-delayed conference opened to review the 50-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually achieving a nuclear-free world.
The threat of nuclear catastrophe was also raised by the US, Japan, Germany, the head of the UN’s nuclear agency and many other opening speakers.
Photo: Reuters
Russia, which came under criticism from some speakers, did not give its address in its scheduled slot on Monday, but was expected to speak yesterday.
China’s representative was scheduled to speak yesterday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that North Korea is preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test, Iran “has either been unwilling or unable” to accept a deal to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement aimed at reining in its nuclear program and Russia is “engaged in reckless, dangerous nuclear saber rattling” in Ukraine.
Blinken cited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning after its Feb. 24 invasion that any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen,” emphasizing that his country is “one of the most potent nuclear powers.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that divisions in the world since the previous review conference in 2015, which ended without a consensus document, have become greater, adding that Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war has contributed “to worldwide concern that yet another catastrophe by nuclear weapon use is a real possibility.”
German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock said that Moscow’s “reckless nuclear rhetoric” since its invasion of its smaller neighbor “is putting at risk everything the NPT has achieved in five decades.”
Putin appeared to roll back on his nuclear warning in a message of greetings to treaty participants posted on his Web site on Monday.
“We believe that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, and we stand for equal and indivisible security for all members of the world community,” Putin said.
Blinken also said that Russia seized Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya and is using it as a military base to fire at Ukrainians, “knowing that they can’t and won’t shoot back because they might accidentally strike a nuclear reactor or highly radioactive waste in storage.”
This brings the notion of having “a human shield to an entirely different and horrific level,” he said.
Russia’s delegation to the conference issued a statement on Monday strongly rejecting Blinken’s contention that Russia is using the Zaporizhzhya plant as a military base, saying a limited number of servicemen are there “to ensure safety and security at the power plant.”
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi said that the Ukraine conflict is “so grave that the specter of a potential nuclear confrontation, or accident, has raised its terrifying head again.”
The Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant “situation is becoming more perilous by the day,” Grossi said, urging all countries to help make possible his visit to the plant with a team of IAEA safety and security experts.
His efforts for the past two months to arrange a visit have been unsuccessful, he said.
Guterres said the month-long review conference is taking place “at a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War.”
The conference is “an opportunity to hammer out the measures that will help avoid certain disaster, and to put humanity on a new path towards a world free of nuclear weapons,” he said.
However, Guterres said that “geopolitical weapons are reaching new highs,” almost 13,000 nuclear weapons are in arsenals around the world and countries seeking “false security” are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on “doomsday weapons.”
“All this at a time when the risks of proliferation are growing and guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening,” he said. “And when crises — with nuclear undertones — are festering from the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and to many other factors around the world.”
Guterres called on conference participants to take several actions: urgently reinforce and reaffirm “the 77-year-old norm against the use of nuclear weapons,” work relentlessly toward eliminating nuclear weapons with new commitments to reduce arsenals, address “the simmering tensions in the Middle East and Asia” and promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology.
“Future generations are counting on your commitment to step back from the abyss,” he said. “This is our moment to meet this fundamental test and lift the cloud of nuclear annihilation once and for all.”
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