Speaking on Monday\u00a0during the\u00a0inaugural\u00a0session\u00a0of the\u00a0deliberations\u00a0on a nuclear-weapon free Middle East, UN Secretary-General\u00a0Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u00a0said the zone would have significance beyond the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cI therefore hope this Conference will serve as the\u00a0start of an inclusive process\u00a0in which all the States of the region can participate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n
Currently, there are five\u00a0nuclear-free\u00a0zones worldwide: in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific.<\/p>\n
Not only do they eliminate\u00a0any possibility of a nuclear conflict in these\u00a0locations, they\u00a0also provide a means for countries to work together on common regional security, according to Mr.\u00a0Guterres.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey also provide tangible security benefits by giving their members assurances against the use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons. At the same time, these zones can provide additional assurance to the global community of the peaceful nuclear intentions of the countries in these regions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n
Significance beyond the region\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n For the Secretary-General, these motives\u00a0are important to the Middle East, where the overall situation remains\u00a0a serious concern for the entire world.<\/p>\n The\u00a0region\u00a0has been scarred by ongoing complex civil wars involving non-state armed groups, terrorist organizations and regional and international military powers.<\/p>\n \u201cMeanwhile, concerns over nuclear\u00a0programmes\u00a0persist\u00a0and continue to drive tensions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have yet to see meaningful accountability for the use of chemical weapons. There are signs of active arms competition, including the acquisition and use of new weapon technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Latin America and Caribbean an\u00a0inspiration\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The Middle East-focused\u00a0meeting, which runs through Friday, marks the first session of a conference that will be held annually until a legally binding treaty for the nuclear-free zone is agreed.<\/p>\n The\u00a0UN chief\u00a0hoped\u00a0participants will be inspired by the example set by\u00a0Latin America and the Caribbean, where the first zone was\u00a0proposed\u00a0in the aftermath of the\u00a0Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the tensions and politics of the Cold War, countries of the region persevered and in 1967 established a flexible and durable arrangement, which has served as a model\u00a0for all such successive zones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cLet us be guided by their experience \u2013 and those of other regions \u2013 as we advance in all of our efforts across the disarmament agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n \n UN\u00a0fight\u00a0for nuclear disarmament\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Tijjani Muhammad-Bande\u00a0President of the UN\u00a0General Assembly, noted the continued existence of more than 15,000\u00a0nuclear warheads stockpiled around the world, and stressed that any use of these weapons would be a humanitarian and ecological catastrophe, causing irreplaceable damage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot in good conscience ignore these risks,\u201d he\u00a0said, adding that the Treaty on the Non\u2011Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons remains the cornerstone of the nuclear disarmament and non\u2011proliferation regime, and its 2020\u00a0Review Conference will propel a stronger commitment towards a nuclear\u2011weapon\u2011free world.<\/p>\n Although nuclear weapons have only been used once in\u00a0history, the\u00a01945\u00a0bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki\u00a0during the Second World War\u00a0attest to their devastation.<\/p>\n These are the most dangerous weapons on Earth, able to \u201cdestroy a whole city, potentially killing millions, and jeopardizing the natural environment and lives of future generations…,\u201d as the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs has\u00a0stated.<\/p>\n The UN was established from the ashes of the Second World War and has been working to eliminate nuclear weapons ever since, including through\u00a0the\u202fTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), as well as the\u202fComprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)\u00a0and the\u202fTreaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), both of which are yet to enter into force.<\/p>\n \n From: UN News<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Speaking on Monday\u00a0during the\u00a0inaugural\u00a0session\u00a0of the\u00a0deliberations\u00a0on a nuclear-weapon free Middle East, UN Secretary-General\u00a0Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u00a0said the zone would have significance beyond the region. \u201cI therefore hope this Conference will serve as the\u00a0start of an inclusive process\u00a0in which all the States of the region can participate,\u201d he said. Currently, there are five\u00a0nuclear-free\u00a0zones worldwide: in Latin America and the …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[184],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1058,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}