China, Russia, Britain, the United States and France have agreed on the need to avoid the further spread of nuclear weapons and the occurrence of nuclear war, this came in a joint statement of the five nuclear powers published by the Kremlin on Monday, and this agreement came in light of the recent escalation of tension between Russia and Western countries.

The statement stated that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council consider that their main responsibility is to avoid the outbreak of war between countries that possess nuclear weapons, and to reduce strategic risks, while aiming to work with all countries to establish an atmosphere of security.

"We declare that there can be no winners in a nuclear war, and it should not start at all," the text of the Russian version of the statement reads, stressing the need to use nuclear weapons "for defensive purposes, deterring any aggression and preventing the outbreak of war."

The statement came amid heightened geopolitical tensions between Russia and Western countries over Russia's build-up of its forces near the border with Ukraine, and Moscow's fears of NATO approaching the Russian border.

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France issued a statement affirming the determination of the five nuclear states to control nuclear weapons and disarmament, and said that it would continue a bilateral and multilateral approach to controlling nuclear weapons. In the world, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that his country still considered a summit between the world's major nuclear powers "necessary".

China said the pledge in the joint statement would "enhance mutual trust" between world powers, reduce the risk of nuclear conflict, and shift competition between major nuclear powers to coordination and cooperation.

The joint statement of the nuclear powers was issued after postponing the last review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force in 1970, after it was scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, until later during the year due to the world's entry into a new wave of the outbreak of the Corona virus.

The United Nations says that 191 countries have acceded to the treaty, which calls for its provisions to review its work every 5 years, and 3 nuclear countries, Pakistan, India and Israel, did not sign the treaty, while North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003.

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In an opinion piece published in another international media last year, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the presence of 13,000 nuclear weapons around the world as a growing threat and a sword that cuts across the planet, and that their possible use is higher than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

Commenting on the joint statement of the five nuclear powers, Jean-Marie Colin, spokeswoman for the French branch of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said that the statement remains positive, but that the signatories to it "update and renew their nuclear arsenals at the same time casts doubt on its declaration."

Russia tops the list of member states of the so-called nuclear club with the highest number of nuclear warheads (6,255), inherited from the Soviet Union, then the United States (5,550), China (350) in a distant third place, behind France (290). Britain (225).

Pakistan has an arsenal of 165 nuclear warheads, pursued by its arch-rival India with 156 warheads, and despite Israel’s policy of adopting strategic ambiguity with regard to its nuclear weapons, the statistics of the Non-Proliferation Association say that Israel has a stockpile of about 90 nuclear warheads, while Iran says that it has Tel Aviv has more than 400 nuclear warheads.

As for North Korea, the same statistics say that it has succeeded in manufacturing between 40 and 50 nuclear warheads since its first successful nuclear test in 2016.