France, Britain and Germany on Saturday said they had "serious doubts" about Iran's intentions to revive a nuclear deal, comments that were rejected by Tehran and called "very untimely" by Moscow.

Iran earlier this month sent its latest response to the European Union's proposed text to restore the 2015 agreement under which Tehran had restrained its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from U.S., EU and U.N. economic sanctions.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday urged countries to reduce their nuclear stockpiles, warning that "humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation."

"Almost 13,000 nuclear weapons are now being held in arsenals around the world. All this at a time when the risks of proliferation are growing and guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening," Guterres said at a conference in New York of countries that are party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that a nuclear war “should never” be launched — as the head of the United Nations warned that the strongman’s Ukraine war is “one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away” from putting the world in danger of nuclear annihilation.

Putin’s comments came in a letter to participants at a UN conference to reaffirm the nuclear non-proliferation treaty that began Monday.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday he is ready to pursue a new nuclear arms deal with Russia and called on Moscow to act in good faith as his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin said there could be no winners in any nuclear war.

Both leaders issued written statements as diplomats gathered for a month-long U.N. conference to review the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It was supposed to take place in 2020 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today the risk of nuclear war is at its highest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Unless the brutal war in Ukraine is ended soon, with a cease-fire and a political and diplomatic resolution providing for Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, escalation may well lead to nuclear conflict—accidental or not.

North Korea has built a new structure at a military site where it produces long-range missiles, a worrying sign that the isolated nation is preparing the "Christmas gift" it warned the U.S. about: a long-range missile test.

Planets Labs released satellite imagery showing the new structure at the March 16 Factory near Pyongyang, a site North Korea reportedly uses to build mobile launchers for its long-range missiles, according to the AP.

North Korea doesn't really do Christmas cards, but if it did, its card would probably have a picture of the nation's leader, Kim Jong Un, riding a white horse through a snowy wilderness. In fact, North Korean state media released those exact images this month, and the message was clear: Kim, frustrated with how things were going, was pondering a new direction.

"The idea is that he was making this journey to commune with the universe in order to settle on his course," says Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, who tracks North Korea.

U.S. officials are on high alert for signs of a possible missile launch from North Korea in the coming days that officials have referred to as a “Christmas gift.”

A significant launch or nuclear test would raise the end of North Korea's self-imposed moratorium on missile launches and tests. It would also be a major blow to one of President Trump’s major foreign policy goals to get North Korea back to the negotiating table to eliminate its nuclear weapons.

UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations said on Saturday that denuclearization is off the negotiating table with the United States and lengthy talks with Washington are not needed, the starkest statement yet emphasizing the gulf between the two sides ahead of a year-end deadline set by Pyongyang.