UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 (AFP) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Tuesday (Sep 26) against a new atomic arms race bringing the threat of "annihilation" to the world, as North Korea charged that its peninsula was on the brink of nuclear war.

With nuclear-armed nations expanding and modernising their arsenals, the UN chief called for a revitalised push to reduce and eventually eliminate those weapons.

"A worrisome new arms race is brewing. The number of nuclear weapons could rise for the first time in decades," Guterres told the General Assembly on the final day of its yearly session.

"Any use of a nuclear weapon - anytime, anywhere and in any context - would unleash a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions," he said.

"Nuclear sabres are again being rattled. This is madness. We must reverse course," he said.

Russia and the United States have by far the largest arsenals, but China's has been growing quickly. North Korea has also defied the world with its nuclear programne and repeated missile tests.

In its own speech, one of the last of the week-long marathon of September's UN General Assembly, North Korea accused arch-rival the United States of driving the peninsula "closer to the brink of nuclear war".

Kim Song, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, denounced South Korea's actions under President Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who has worked to build tighter cooperation with the United States as well as historic rival Japan.

"Due to its sycophantic and humiliating policy of depending on outside forces," Kim said, "the Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war".

He pointed to the recent formation of the Nuclear Consultative Group, through which the United States hopes to integrate its nuclear capacity better with South Korea's conventional forces, with the two allies increasing information sharing and contingency planning.

Kim alleged that the group was "committed to the planning, operation and execution of preemptive nuclear strike against the DPRK", the official name of the North, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Photo from AP