UN Secretary‑General António Guterres warned that the expiration of the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia marks a “grave moment for international peace and security”, ending decades of legally binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals, Turkish Anadolu Agency reported.
In a statement issued, Wednesday, as the New START treaty expires on 5 February, Guterres said that “for the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America”, the two states that hold the overwhelming majority of the world’s nuclear weapons.
He stressed that arms control between Washington and Moscow had long acted as a stabilising force, reducing the risk of catastrophic miscalculation. From the early Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) to New START, bilateral agreements had led to the dismantling of thousands of nuclear weapons and strengthened global security.
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time,” he warned, noting that the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is now “the highest in decades”. The absence of verifiable limits on strategic arsenals, he added, heightens global insecurity amid rising geopolitical tensions and rapid technological change.
Even so, Guterres said the moment should be viewed as an opportunity to reset arms control efforts. “The world now looks to the Russian Federation and the United States to translate words into action,” he said, urging both sides to return to negotiations without delay and agree on a successor framework that restores verifiable limits, reduces risks and strengthens collective security.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was signed in Prague on 8 April 2010 and entered into force on 5 February 2011. It replaced the 1991 START I treaty and superseded the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), according to the US‑based Arms Control Association.
Source: Anadolu Agency