Nukes must be eliminated ‘before they eliminate us’: UN's Guterres

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for nuclear disarmament at the start of a three-day conference in Vienna of around 80 countries that have signed an international treaty banning nuclear weapons.

"Let's eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us," Guterres said in a message to the conference transmitted by video link.

The current global arsenal of around 13,000 nuclear warheads was a recipe for the possible destruction of the planet, given a world of conflict and mistrust, the UN head said on Tuesday.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, described the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as a "milestone."

The treaty, which went into effect in January 2021, obliges countries not to engage in any activities related to nuclear weapons and calls for their humanitarian consequences to be taken into account.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg emphasized the urgency of total nuclear disarmament. Austria was one of the initiators of the treaty.

The TPNW has been signed by 86 countries and ratified by 65. It aims to extend the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which went into effect in 1970.

There are nine countries that possess nuclear weapons. These countries, along with NATO, do not participate in the TPNW.