KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 30 — Malaysia today became the 46th nation to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to help bring the international accord within reach of the threshold needed to be enforced.

The TPNW requires a minimum of 50 signatories to ratify it before it can be effective.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, who is under a home surveillance order, remotely signed the treaty on behalf of Malaysia today.

At the signing ceremony at Wisma Putra today, Hishammuddin said Malaysia’s decision to ratify the treaty was an affirmation of its commitment to reject the use of nuclear weapons, which he said were devastating to all humanity.

"Malaysia has always held a principle position that the general and complete elimination of nuclear weapons should be at the top of the international agenda,” said Hishammuddin in his speech that was delivered by his deputy, Datuk Kamaruddin Jaafar.

During the ceremony today, a video was played of Hishammuddin signing the ratification of the treaty and subsequently congratulating the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as other parties who were instrumental towards Malaysia’s ratification today.

In his speech, Hishammuddin expressed concern that nuclear powers have been regressing in the area of disarmament.

"Despite some progress over the decades just preceding and after the end of the cold war, recent developments regarding nuclear weapons are going in the wrong direction.

"Instead of fulfilling their legal obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to engage in good faith negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament, global tensions and increased great power rivalry have led nuclear weapons and nuclear-armed states to continue to modernise their nuclear arsenals.

"For Malaysia and many non-nuclear-weapon states, these developments are unacceptable. They affected our security and the security of all states,” he said.

Malaysia signed the TPNW in 2017, taking a bold stance of rejecting the use of nuclear weapons.

The treaty was signed at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly in New York by then foreign minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman.

The TPNW seeks to dissuade all countries without nuclear arms from ever seeking these while simultaneously compelling nuclear powers to gradually disarm with an eye on the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons have only been used once in recorded history, when the US dropped two such bombs on Japan at the end of World War II, but the prevailing arms race among nuclear powers continues to put the world at risk of nuclear annihilation.