The foreign minister was speaking during the high-level segment (HLS) of the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the HLS of the Conference on Disarmament.

Egypt’s top diplomat underlined the important role of the disarmament conference at the international security level. However, he denounced the insistence of some countries on refusing to achieve any serious progress in nuclear disarmament in a verifiable and irreversible manner.

The reality, Shoukry said, revealed that nuclear states are continually shirking their obligations to disarm under nuclear disarmament Article 6 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

The matter constitutes a challenge to the credibility of the international system for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, he noted.

Shoukry added that the growing security challenges require the multilateral international system, especially those concerned with disarmament, to act responsibly by having the necessary political will.

Gaza war
 

Shoukry addressed the Israeli aggression on Gaza, reiterating the call for an immediate ceasefire and unrestricted access to humanitarian aid to the strip, where Israel has killed over 30,000 Palestinians.

“The ongoing war in Gaza, which witnessed an official threat to use nuclear weapons against the Palestinian people, requires all peace forces to work to restore and strengthen the foundations of regional stability in the Middle East,” he added.

In November, an ultra-right Israeli minister said: “Dropping some kind of atomic bomb on Gaza to kill everyone is one option.”

Shoukry denounced the double standards of some countries that “selectively deal with the value of human life." He stressed Egypt’s categorical rejection of any attempts to forcibly displace the Palestinians.

The foreign minister called on the international community to assume its responsibilities in protecting the Palestinian people and supporting their inalienable right to establish their Palestinian state, on its lands occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.