UNITED NATIONS: Dozens of countries signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons on Wednesday amid tensions over North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, although the United States, Britain, France and others boycotted the event at the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders. They represent billions of people from across the world, from Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific, including large countries that have given up nuclear weapons programmes, such as Brazil and South Africa. The United Nations adopted the treaty in July, though none of the nine countries that have nuclear weapons took part in shaping it or voting on it, and three of them — NATO members Britain, France and the United States — immediately said they had no intention of joining it. As leaders formally signed on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed as historic the first multilateral disarmament treaty in more than two decades. Concerns about costs meant that the negotiators left many aspects of implementing the treaty to be decided at future meetings once the treaty has been ratified by at least 50 states and has therefore entered into full legal force. "At a time when the world needs to remain united in the face of growing threats, in particular the grave threat posed by North Korea's nuclear programme, the treaty fails to take into account these urgent security challenges," the 29-nation Western alliance said. “For decades, nuclear weapons have remained the only weapons of mass destruction not yet prohibited, despite their immense destructive power and threat to humanity,” Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said. Japan is a top target of North Korea, which has triggered global alarm over its rapidly progressing drive to develop nuclear weapons, following its sixth and most powerful nuclear test and the firing of two intercontinental ballistic missiles. “Indeed it risks doing the opposite by creating divisions and divergences at a time when a unified approach to proliferation and security threats is required more than ever.”

The intervention from the alliance comes a day after US President Donald Trump told the UN General Assembly in New York he was ready to “totally destroy” North Korea, mocking its leader Kim Jong-Un as “Rocket Man… on a suicide mission”. Guterres warned that the threat of a nuclear attack is at its highest level since the end of the Cold War and “fiery talk can lead to fatal misunderstandings.”

But nuclear powers say a ban on the weapons won’t work. NATO said the ban treaty risked undermining the NPT, which seeks to prevent the spread of atomic weapons but also puts the onus on nuclear states to reduce their stockpiles.
Fifty countries (50) sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted on 7 July 2017, at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The world's nuclear-weapon states oppose the measure.