The United Nations chief is appealing for ceasefires in the world’s major conflicts, from Yemen and Libya to Afghanistan and Nagorno-Karabakh [(Artsakh)], warning that if fighting continues “the only winner is the pandemic,” The Associated Press reported.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with The Associated Press that he was renewing his March 23 call for an immediate halt to all conflicts to tackle the coronavirus crisis and to spotlight the most serious global hotspots 

“We need a massive support of the international community,” he said. “We need a massive support of all those who have an influence on the parties to the conflict to stop all those more dramatic situations of conflict until the end of the year.”

The secretary-general pointed to the newest conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“In the last two weeks, COVID cases have doubled in Armenia and increased 80 percent in Azerbaijan,” he said in Wednesday’s AP interview. “Armenia is not winning. Azerbaijan is not winning. But COVID is winning. We need to stop.”

Guterres said the same holds true for the conflicts in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Africa’s Sahel region and elsewhere.

“I’m here to appeal to all of them to understand that there’s no way to win any war,” he said. “The only way is to join efforts for cease-fires, political talks and to defeat COVID. If not, the only winner is the pandemic.”

Guterres noted that initiatives by Russia and France have failed to halt fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh which began about four weeks ago.

“Let’s make sure” that after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s separate meetings with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington on Friday “there is a ceasefire,” he said.

The U.N. chief said that with global power relations less clear, “a number of small and medium-size actors started to get much more active in creating conflicts or in supporting parties to the conflict.”

Guterres said his hope is that the unity of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France—on key conflicts “will help us put pressure on those that are still not yet convinced that there is no way that anyone can win a war.”

And he stressed again: “The only way is to stop the war, start the political process and not let the COVID become the only winner.”