Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for joining us on this important day highlighting the need for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
There should be no place for these devices of death in our world.
Nuclear weapons are a double madness.
The first madness is the existence of weapons that can wipe out entire populations, communities and cities in a single attack.
We know that any use of a nuclear weapon would unleash a humanitarian catastrophe — a nightmare spilling over borders, affecting us all.
These weapons deliver no real security or stability — only looming danger, and constant threats to our very existence.
The second madness is that, despite the enormous and existential risks these weapons pose to humanity, we are no closer to eliminating them than we were 10 years ago.
In fact, we are heading in the wrong direction entirely.
Not since the worst days of the Cold War has the specter of nuclear weapons cast such a dark shadow.
Nuclear saber-rattling has reached a fever pitch.
We have even heard threats to use a nuclear weapon.
There are fears of a new arms race.
Meanwhile, the norms painstakingly established over decades against the use, spread and testing of nuclear weapons are being eroded.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
The first-hand, lived experience of the hibakusha — the brave survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — stand as clear reminders of where the nuclear path ends.
They continue to sound the alarm, reminding us that we cannot afford to forget the lessons learned from those horrifying nuclear attacks in 1945.
And yet, nearly 80 years later, nuclear-weapon States continue to roll the dice, resisting disarmament measures and believing that, somehow, our luck will never run out.
But luck is not a strategy.
They must stop gambling with humanity’s future.
This starts with nuclear-weapon States honoring their commitments, and meeting their disarmament obligations.
Until nuclear weapons are eliminated, these States should commit to never use them under any circumstances. And they must demonstrate the utmost transparency in all matters related to nuclear weapons.
I also call on the Russian Federation and the United States to return to the process of nuclear arms reductions, with other nuclear-weapon States following in due course.
Disarmament and non-proliferation are two sides of the same coin.
Progress in one spurs progress in the other.
States must pursue both as a matter of urgency.
