“Humanity is only one misunderstanding away from nuclear annihilation,” warned the UN Secretary General at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. The United Nations Conference on Nuclear Disarmament will be held in New York after two years of delay.
The UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference began its work on Monday, August 1 (10 August).
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned at the 10th Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference that the world is facing a nuclear threat that has been unprecedented since the height of the Cold War.
According to the Secretary General of the United Nations, “Humanity is in danger of forgetting the lessons learned from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”. He also warned that “humanity is only one misunderstanding and one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation”.
Guterres’ warning is very important at this critical juncture, because the revision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was stopped before the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Reducing the nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons worldwide is now more difficult than ever.
German Foreign Minister Analena Berbock plans to speak at the New York conference. On the eve of his trip to New York, he said that he will fight for nuclear disarmament.
Berbuk continued his speech and said that Germany, together with 15 other countries, has submitted 22 proposals for nuclear disarmament. He also emphasized that even a small and insignificant progress in this direction is worth any effort.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov will also speak in this conference.
The five countries officially recognized as possessing nuclear weapons under the NPT are the United Kingdom, China, France, Russia, and the United States, which developed and tested nuclear weapons before January 1, 1967. These countries signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968.
India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel are also unofficial holders of nuclear weapons.
According to the NPT treaty, whose number of signatories now reaches about 190 countries, countries that have tested and produced such weapons before January 1967 are recognized as possessing nuclear weapons.
The last meeting of the NPT Review Conference, which was supposed to be held in 2020, was postponed many times due to the Corona epidemic. The current UN conference will continue until August 26.
