UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday convened a high-level meeting commemorating and promoting the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

"We are sleepwalking into a new nuclear arms race, more complex, more unpredictable, and even more dangerous," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a message read out at the meeting. "The risks of escalation and miscalculation are multiplying," and disarmament is the foundation of peace, he said while calling on all countries possessing nuclear weapons to return to dialogue in efforts to "forge a world free of these weapons of extinction."

The UN has effective frameworks for reducing nuclear dangers, including the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, said UNGA President Annalena Baerbock in her address. Each member state has to live up to them, especially those who possess them, she said.

Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, noted that nuclear weapons pose a major security threat to all countries in the world. The international community should make joint efforts to promote nuclear disarmament, prevent nuclear proliferation, and reduce nuclear risks, he said.

The International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, observed annually on Sept. 26, serves as a reminder of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and the urgent need for their complete elimination. The General Assembly declared the International Day in December 2013 as a follow-up to the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on nuclear disarmament held on Sept. 26, 2013, in New York. ■