Washington-UN Chief Seeks Lasting Ban on Nuclear Testing, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres marked the International Day against Nuclear Tests on August 29 by calling for a permanent ban on nuclear testing. He emphasized that the devastating consequences of nuclear testing, including uninhabitable lands and long-term health problems, must not be forgotten.
Guterres noted that over 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted globally since 1945, with the Semipalatinsk site in Kazakhstan alone witnessing 456 explosions between 1949 and 1989. He expressed concern that recent calls for resuming nuclear testing demonstrate a disregard for the lessons of the past.
More than 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted at over 60 sites around the world since testing began on 16 July 1945, resulting in uninhabitable lands and long-term health problems, the UN chief pointed out in his message for the day.
“Recent calls for the resumption of nuclear testing demonstrate that the terrible lessons of the past are being forgotten – or ignored,” he said.
The International Day was established in 2009 by the UN General Assembly to recall the date of the official closing of the Semipalatinsk nuclear weapons testing site in today’s Kazakhstan on 29 August 1991.
That one site alone saw 456 nuclear test explosions between 1949 and 1989, the UN said.
In the shadow of the Cold War, the world witnessed an unprecedented era of nuclear proliferation and testing, it was pointed out.
Between the years 1954 and 1984 there was on average at least one nuclear weapons test somewhere in the world every week, most with a blast far exceeding the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Moreover, nuclear weapons stockpiles have grown exponentially, with the majority far more powerful than the bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This proliferation has left a ‘legacy of destruction’, according to Guterres, significantly disrupting people’s lives and livelihoods and affecting the environment with traces of radioactivity in even the deepest of ocean trenches.
The UN chief called on the world to speak with one voice, “to end this practice once and for all”.
He has praised the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty as an “essential, verifiable security tool” due to its complete prohibition on all nuclear testing.
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He also urged all countries whose ratifications are needed for the Treaty to enter into force to do so immediately and without conditions.
“Let’s pass the test for humanity – and ban nuclear testing for good,” he added.
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