North Korea threatens ‘imminent danger of nuclear war’ as horrified UN chief calls for the ‘madness’ to end

The United Nation’s Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has urged countries in possession of nuclear arms to get rid of them. Speaking in New York yesterday, Tuesday 26 September, to the General Assembly on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, he explained:

The real only way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons is to eliminate them. Any use of a nuclear weapon — anytime, anywhere and in any context — would unleash a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions.

North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Song, told the assembly that North Korea is ready for nuclear war:

The Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war.

He claimed this was down to South Korea's humiliating dependency on outside forces, reports the Express.

The destruction caused by nuclear weapons

Guterres repeatedly underlined the extent of the damage caused by a nuclear weapon, making reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As detailed in the recent hit film Oppenheimer, the US dropped atomic bombs on these two Japanese cities in horrific attacks that led to the end of WWII. According to the BBC, around 140,000 were killed in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki. Thousands more who survived the bombs died afterwards from radiation sickness.

Guterres made a promise to the survivors of these attacks, known as hibakusha and to the world:

I have pledged to do everything within my power to gather countries around the need to wipe these devices of destruction off the face of the earth.

Artificial intelligence could make a nuclear war more likely

Guterres urged for a reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. He called for an end to this ‘madness’ and suggested that AI could increase the threat of ‘nuclear annihilation’.About nuclear weapons, he said:

The global disarmament and non-proliferation architecture is eroding. Nuclear arsenals are being modernized to make these weapons faster, more accurate and stealthier.

The UN Chief urged countries armed with such weapons to honour their disarmament obligations and vow never to use nuclear warfare under any circumstances.

This dialogue must extend to all categories of nuclear weapons, and it must address the increasing interplay between strategic and conventional weapons and the nexus between nuclear weapons and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

Guterres called on all countries to end this potentially apocalyptic arms race and ‘usher in a new era of peace’:

Let’s make history by consigning nuclear weapons to history.

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Sources used:

Express:UN chief's terror as North Korea says nuclear war is 'imminent'

BBC: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 75th anniversary of atomic bombings