![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Antonio-Guterres_MDaily.jpg\")
MUNICH | At the height of the East-West conflict since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the world is now a more dangerous place than it was during the Cold War.<\/p>\nMUNICH | At the height of the East-West conflict since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the world is now a more dangerous place than it was during the Cold War.<\/p>\n
Guterres warned that a small mistake or miscommunication between major powers could have catastrophic consequences.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am often asked whether we are in a new Cold War,\u201d Guterres said in his opening speech at an annual security conference in Munich. \u201cMy answer is that the threat to global security now is more complex and probably higher than at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the decades-long standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 20th century, \u201cthere were mechanisms that enabled the protagonists to calculate risks and use back-channels to prevent crises,\u201d Guterres said. \u201cToday, many of those systems no longer exist and most of the people trained to use them are no longer here with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he said he still believes the buildup of Russian troops around Ukraine won\u2019t result in a military conflict.<\/p>\n
While U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were attending the Munich Security Conference, there was no senior official present from Russia.<\/p>\n
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the Russians missed an opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cParticularly in the current, extremely threatening situation it would have been important to also meet Russian representatives in Munich,\u201d she said in a statement ahead of the conference. Even tiny steps toward peace would be \u201cbetter than a big step toward war.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her speech later Friday, she said the security crisis in Europe isn\u2019t a Ukraine crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a Russia crisis. We urgently call on Russia to immediately withdraw its troops,\u201d she said. \u201cFirst signals in that direction were a glimmer of hope, but we need to see actions now. Because the Russian threat remains real.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baerbock said it was critical that the West should impose crushing sanctions on Moscow in the event of an invasion, even if that came at a heavy cost to Europe. The Biden administration has made clear that an invasion would mean the end of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was built to increase Russian gas exports to Germany.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe in Germany are ready to pay a high price for this,\u201d Baerbock said. \u201cThat is why all options are on the table, also Nord Stream 2.\u201d<\/p>\n
(AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MUNICH | At the height of the East-West conflict since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the world is now a more dangerous place than it was during the Cold War. Guterres warned that a small mistake or miscommunication between major powers could have catastrophic consequences. \u201cI am often asked whether we are in a new Cold War,\u201d Guterres said in his opening speech at an annual security conference in Munich. \u201cMy answer is that the threat to global security…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":599935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47748],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-599929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}