As UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the world faces “the most dangerous nuclear moment since the end of the Cold War,” speakers from across the Global Majority used today’s UN High-Level meeting on Elimination of Nuclear Weapons to argue that the way forward runs through disarmament, law, and dialogue.

Guterres cited the expiration of New START and the failure of the 11th NPT Review Conference to reach consensus, saying the safeguards built over decades are “breaking down,” and he urged the U.S. and Russia to negotiate a successor framework to New START.

Kazakhstan’s representative offered the most striking testimony. Thirty-five years ago, he recalled, his country closed the Semipalatinsk test site, where 456 nuclear explosions left “a devastating legacy for our people and environment.” It then voluntarily renounced the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union, the world’s fourth-largest.

“Our experience has taught us a simple truth: security cannot be built on the threat of annihilation,” he said, adding that it must instead rest on “trust, dialogue and responsible choices.”