Gold, silver prices drop sharply

The futures prices of gold and silver tanked during Thursday trading.

COMEX gold futures dipped to below 4,800 U.S. dollars per ounce, and silver futures plummeted to below 70 dollars per ounce.

After a sharp sell-off last week and early this week, precious metal prices have continued to fluctuate around key psychological levels.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the United States and Russia to return to the negotiating table, as the expiration of New START, the U.S.-Russia nuclear arms reduction treaty, marks a grave moment for global peace and security, his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Thursday.

New START, which limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads and strategic delivery systems of the U.S. and Russia, expired on Thursday.

"The expiration of the New START Treaty marks a grave moment for international peace and security. For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America, the two states that possess the overwhelming majority of the global stockpile of nuclear weapons," said Dujarric in his briefing.

In his remarks, Guterres said throughout the Cold War and its aftermath, nuclear arms control between these governments helped prevent catastrophe. It built stability and, when combined with other measures, prevented devastating miscalculations. Most importantly, it facilitated the reduction of thousands of nuclear weapons from national arsenals. From the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) to New START, strategic arms control drastically improved the security of all peoples, not least the populations of the U.S. and Russia.

This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time. The risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades, the UN chief noted.

"Yet even in this moment of uncertainty, we must search for hope. This is an opportunity to reset and create an arms control regime fit for a rapidly evolving context. The Secretary-General welcomes that both the Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation have made clear that they appreciate the destabilizing impact of a nuclear arms race and the need to prevent the return to a world of unchecked nuclear proliferation. The world now looks to the Russian Federation and the United States to translate these words into action. The Secretary-General urges both states to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework that restores verifiable limits, reduces risks, and strengthens our common security," said Dujarric.

New START, which entered into force in 2011, was the last arms control pact between Russia and the U.S. after Washington withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019.