The world is closer to nuclear war now more than any time since the Second World War, UN arms chief says
- Renata Dwan, UN chief of disarmament research, issued stark warning to world
- Competition between superpowers such as US and China driving risk, she said
- Countries with nuclear bombs are updating stockpiles while tearing up treaties
- Risk of nuclear war is an 'urgent issue' that leaders need to take more seriously
Renata Dwan, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, said the risk of nuclear war is an 'urgent' issue
The risk of nuclear weapons being used is at its highest since World War Two, a senior U.N. security expert said on Tuesday.
Renata Dwan, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, said the threat of nuclear war is an 'urgent' issue that the world needs to take more seriously.
Despite the fact that 122 nations have signed a treaty to ban the weapons, she said, all countries with nuclear arms are currently updating their stockpiles.
Meanwhile arms control treaties are also being torn up - such as the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty which was signed at the height of the Cold War but torn up by the Trump White House earlier this year.
Increased competition between superpowers such as China and the US is also driving up the risk of nuclear conflict, she said.
Ms Dwan points out that all countries with nuclear arms are currently updating their stockpiles while tearing up arms control treaties (file image)
Traditional arms control arrangements are also being eroded by the emergence of new types of war.
The increasing prevalence of armed groups and private sector forces, and new technologies that blur the line between offence and defence, are contributing to the problem, she told reporters in Geneva.
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'I think that it´s genuinely a call to recognise - and this has been somewhat missing in the media coverage of the issues - that the risks of nuclear war are particularly high now, and the risks of the use of nuclear weapons, for some of the factors I pointed out, are higher now than at any time since World War Two,' she said.
The nuclear ban treaty, officially called the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, was backed by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.
Competition between world superpowers such as the United States and China is also driving up the chance of a nuclear conflict breaking out
The treaty has so far gathered 23 of the 50 ratifications that it needs to come into force, including South Africa, Austria, Thailand, Vietnam and Mexico.
However, it is strongly opposed by the United States, Russia, and other states with nuclear arms.
Dwan said the world should not ignore the danger of nuclear weapons.
'How we think about that, and how we act on that risk and the management of that risk, seems to me a pretty significant and urgent question that isn't reflected fully in the (U.N.) Security Council,' she said.
