The five-year review of the NPT was to take place in 2020, when the world was already facing a lot of crisis, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The five-year review of the NPT was to take place in 2020, when the world was already facing a lot of crisis, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The UN chief warned the world on 1 August that “humanity is just a misunderstanding, a miscalculation from nuclear annihilation,” citing the war in Ukraine, nuclear threats in Asia and the Middle East and many other factors.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sounded dire warnings at the opening of a long-delayed high-level meeting to review the historic 50-year-old treaty aimed at halting the spread of nuclear weapons and ultimately achieving a nuclear-free world.
Nuclear threats and the threat of nuclear catastrophe were addressed by the United States, Japan, Germany, the UN nuclear chief and several other inaugural speakers at the meeting to review progress and agree on future steps to implement the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. was also raised. as NPT.
Read also: nuclear non-proliferation treaty status
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said North Korea was preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test, with Iran “reluctant to either accept an agreement to return to the 2015 nuclear deal aimed at reining in its nuclear program”. or incapable”, and Russia is “engaged in a reckless, dangerous nuclear saber-rattling” in Ukraine.
He cited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings after the February 24 invasion that any attempt to intervene would have “results you’ll never see”, emphasizing that his country is “one of the most powerful nuclear powers.” “
This is in contrast to Ukraine’s assurances of its sovereignty and independence when it gave up Soviet-era nuclear weapons in 1994, Mr Blinken said, and sends the “worst possible message” to any country, thinking it has to defend itself. Nuclear weapons are needed. and stop the aggression.
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that the division in the world has become greater since the last review conference in 2015, which ended without a consent document, emphasizing that Ukraine is not using nuclear weapons in the war. Russia’s threat to the U.S. has “contributed to worldwide concern that yet another devastation from the use of nuclear weapons is a real possibility.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock accused Russia of “brutally violating the assurances” given to Ukraine in 1994 and said Moscow’s “reckless nuclear rhetoric” since the invasion of its smaller neighbour “in the five decades” by the NPT. jeopardizing everything that has been achieved.”
Recently, Mr Blinken said that Russia has 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 could accidentally attack a nuclear reactor or highly radioactive waste in storage.”
He said it brings the notion of being “a human shield to a completely different and terrifying level”.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the Ukraine conflict “is so serious that the ghost of a potential nuclear collision, or accident, has raised its terrifying head again.”
He warned that the “situation is becoming more dangerous by the day” at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, and urged all countries to help make their visit to the plant possible with a team of IAEA safety and security experts. Said that his efforts for the past two months have been unsuccessful.
Mr Guterres told several ministers, officials and diplomats gathered in the General Assembly hall that the month-long review conference is taking place “in a time of nuclear threat not seen since the height of the Cold War.”
“The conference is an opportunity to advance measures that will help avoid some disaster, and lead humanity on a new path toward a world free of nuclear weapons,” the Secretary-General said.
But Mr Guterres warned that “geopolitical weapons are reaching new heights,” with nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons in arsenals worldwide, and countries seeking “false security” spending hundreds of billions of dollars on “weapons of doom”. are.
“All this at a time when the risks of proliferation are rising and the railing to contain escalation is weakening,” he said, “and when the crisis – along with nuclear ventures – has led to an invasion of Ukraine from the Middle East and the Korean peninsula. Celebrating Russia, and many other factors around the world.”
Mr Guterres called on conference participants to take a number of actions: urgently reinforce and reaffirm the “77-year norm against the use of nuclear weapons”, eliminating nuclear weapons with new commitments to reducing arsenals. To work tirelessly towards, address the “emerging 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 urged ministers and diplomats.
“This is our moment to complete this fundamental test and lift the cloud of nuclear annihilation once and forever.”
Japan’s Kishida, in recalling his hometown of Hiroshima, where the first atomic bomb was dropped in August 1945, echoed many of Guterres’ points, saying that the path to a world without nuclear weapons had become difficult but “giving up there is no substitute.”
Since 1970, the non-proliferation treaty, known as the NPT, has the broadest adherence to any arms control agreement, of which some 191 countries are members.
Under its provisions, the five original nuclear powers – the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain and France – agreed to negotiate toward someday eliminating their arsenals and nations without nuclear weapons. Promised not to get them in return. Guaranteed to be able to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
India and Pakistan, which did not join the NPT, proceeded to get the bombs. So did North Korea, which ratified the deal but later announced it was withdrawing. Non-signatory Israel is believed to have a nuclear arsenal, but neither confirms nor denies it. Nonetheless, as a framework for international cooperation on disarmament, the treaty has been credited with limiting the number of nuclear entrants (US President John F. Kennedy once predicted about 20 nuclear-armed nations).
The meeting, which ends on 26 August, aims to build consensus on next steps, but hopes are low – if any – for agreement. There were 133 speakers as of Monday, plus dozens of side events.
The five-year review of the NPT was to take place in 2020, when the world was already facing a lot of crisis, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Patricia Lewis, former director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, now in charge of international security programs at the international affairs think tank Chatham House, London, said: “President Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons has shocked the international community. ”
Russia is not only an NPT signatory, but a depository for treaty ratification, and in January it joined four other nuclear powers, reiterating statements by former US President Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that “a nuclear war will never cannot be won and must never be fought,” she said AP,
Ms Lewis said the countries participating in the review conference would have to make a difficult decision.
To support the treaty and what it means, “governments must address Russia’s behavior and threats,” she said.
“On the other hand, to do so risks dividing the members of the treaty – some of whom have been persuaded or at least not concerned with Russia’s propaganda, for example, as NATO states.”
And “there is no doubt that Russia will strongly object to being named in the statements and any result documents,” Ms Lewis said.