UN Chief Warns Of New Nuclear Arms Race On Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Attack Anniversary

UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2020) A scramble by some nations to upgrade and expand nuclear arsenals threatens to unleash a new arms race, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in a video message on the 75th anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb of Hiroshima and later on Nagasaki.

"The birth of the United Nations in that same fateful year of 1945 is forever intertwined with the death rained down on Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Guterres said. "Seventy-five years is far too long not to have learned that the possession of nuclear weapons diminishes, rather than reinforces, security."

Guterres warned that web of arms control, transparency and confidence-building instruments established during the Cold War and its aftermath is fraying, replaced by division, distrust and a lack of dialogue that threaten to return the world to unrestrained strategic nuclear competition.

"States possessing nuclear weapons are modernizing their arsenals and developing new and dangerous weapons and delivery systems. The risk of nuclear weapons being used, intentionally, by accident or through miscalculation, is too high for such trends to continue," Guterres said.

The UN chief urged nations to seek a common vision and path leading to the total elimination of nuclear weapons.