Humanity is a miscalculation away from annihilation: UN chief raises nuke concerns

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that the nuclear threats emanating from the war in Ukraine as well as in Asia and the Middle East have put the world one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation, AP reported.

"Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation," Guterres told the 10th review conference of the NPT, an international treaty that came into force in 1970 to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

At the UN on Monday, Guterres told many ministers, officials and diplomats gathered in the General Assembly Hall that the month-long review conference is taking place "at a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War".

Citing Russia's war with Ukraine and tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the Middle East, Guterres said he feared that crises "with nuclear undertones" could escalate.

Calling on nations to "put humanity on a new path towards a world free of nuclear weapons, he stressed that although we have been extraordinarily lucky so far, luck is not a strategy nor is it a shield from geopolitical tensions boiling over into nuclear conflict.

Guterres remarked that the conference was "a chance to strengthen" the treaty and "make it fit for the worrying world around us".

"Eliminating nuclear weapons is the only guarantee they will never be used," the secretary-general said, adding that he would visit Hiroshima for the anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the Japanese city on 6 August 1945.

Guterres added that almost 13,000 nuclear weapons are now being held in arsenals around the world and noted that this is at a time when the risks of proliferation are growing and guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening.

In January, the five permanent members of the UN security council – the US, China, Russia, Britain and France – had pledged to prevent the further dissemination of nuclear weapons.

On Monday, the US, Britain and France reaffirmed their commitment in a joint statement, saying a "nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought".

The three also took aim at Russia – which announced it had placed its nuclear forces on alert shortly after its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February – and urged Moscow to respect its international commitments under the NPT.

The meeting, held at the UN's headquarters in New York, has been postponed several times since 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.