Cuba declared Friday at the United Nations it is unacceptable the development of new types of nuclear weapons and continuance of defense doctrines based on the possession and use of those artefacts.

It is unjustifiable that despite the end of the Cold War there are still 23,300 nuclear weapons in the world, and almost half of them ready to be used immediately and more powerful than those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Cuba's stance was made known through its acting permanent representative at the UN, Rodolfo Benitez, when speaking Friday at the second Conference of Nuclear Weapons Free Zones.

The diplomat criticized the use of millions of dollars to modernize those arms, when over 100 countries will fail to accomplish the Millennium Development Goals for lacking financial resources.

Despite the economic crisis and the over one billion hungry people worldwide, military expenses increase each year, already touching 1.46 trillion dollars, he stressed.

The Cuban official called for the Conference on Revision of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to begin here Monday, to adopt an action plan to eliminate and ban those arms by 2025 at the latest.

Meanwhile, he urged countries with nuclear arms to provide unconditional guarantees against the use or threat to use that kind of weapons.

Benitez also expressed concerns over the possibility that weapons for mass extermination, including nuclear ones, are used in terror acts, and stated the only effective, sustainable way to avoid so is eliminating them fully.

In addition, he demanded respect for all States' right to use nuclear energy with peaceful goals, and free technological transference with those purposes, without politically motivated obstacles or exclusion.