"I call on all state parties to work together at the 2020 Review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to ensure the NPT remains able to fulfil its fundamental goals - preventing nuclear war and facilitating the elimination of nuclear weapons," Guterres said.
Guterres, reporting to the UN General Assembly on his priorities for this year, said that the international community is challenged this year - growing political tensions, existential climate crisis, deep global mistrust and the dark side of technological advances.
To address the four threats, Guterres suggested focusing on prevention, mediation and peacekeeping capacities as well as building fair globalization, reducing gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and promoting global digital cooperation to formulate new technological norms.
The 2020 NPT Review Conference will kick off at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 27 April.
Iran's NPT Membership
Earlier this week, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi clarified Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s statement on the possibility of Tehran’s exit from the NPT.
"What Zarif stated in the Parliament was a part of provisions of a letter penned by the [Iranian] President Rouhani to the heads of 4+1 Group in May 2019 on announcing Iran’s reducing of its commitments” under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)," Mousavi said.
Previously, Rouhani warned that Iran will leave the NPT if the European Union takes Iran’s nuclear case to the UN Security Council (UNSC).
The NPT, which entered into force in 1970, aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, encouraging the peaceful use of nuclear energy and nuclear disarmament. It was extended indefinitely in 1995.