Progress toward a nuclear free world have “stalled” the top UN disarmament official said on Monday, the 73rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Speaking at a ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on behalf of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN’s high representative for disarmament affairs, said that what happened at Hiroshima on 6th August, 1945 – when tens of thousands were killed after the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city – “cannot and must not ever happen again”.
But she added that after decades of momentum “towards the shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, progress has stalled”.
“Tensions between nuclear-armed states are rising. Nuclear arsenals are being modernized and, in some cases, expanded.”
Ms Nakamitsu said that despite this, last year’s adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons demonstrated the international support that still exists for a permanent end to the threat posed by nuclear arms and urged world leader to return to “dialogue and diplomacy”.
In May, Mr Guterres unveiled a new vision for global disarmament including the removal of nuclear arsenals.
Speaking in Geneva as he unveiled the new plan, he said while the UN had been created with “the goal of eliminating war as an instrument of foreign policy”, “seven decades on, our world is as dangerous as it has ever been”.
“We are one mechanical, electronic or human error away from a catastrophe that could eradicate entire cities from the map,” he said.
