Translated material
High security conference
Russia and the United States want, but cannot, achieve nuclear zero
The review conference on the implementation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which opened at the UN headquarters in New York, will last until May 28. This is the eighth conference, and such forums have been held every five years since the NPT entered into force in March 1970. Now all members of the UN are its participants, except Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in his message to the conference, wished it successful work. The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that the countries participating in the NPT will have to prepare a package of effective and practically implementable measures. Their goal is to ensure that the participating countries fulfill their obligations under the three main components of the treaty: non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, disarmament and the peaceful use of atomic energy. Yesterday evening, the Russian delegate, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, addressed the conference.
Of the participating countries, Iran is the most controversial in terms of maintaining the nonproliferation regime. This country was represented at the conference by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He called for the complete destruction of nuclear weapons, the transformation of the NPT into a treaty on complete nuclear disarmament, and announced agreement with the idea of exchanging low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel from Russia and France, without, however, explaining on what conditions this exchange should be carried out. He also accused the United States of intending to disrupt Iran's peaceful nuclear program, as well as nuclear terrorism, recalling the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called these accusations “wild,” and Ahmadinejad’s entire speech as an attempt to distract the world community from Iran’s non-peaceful intentions in the nuclear sphere. At the same time, the United States also calls on all countries to achieve nuclear zero, that is, complete disarmament. Just yesterday, the Pentagon revealed some data about the country's nuclear arsenals, reporting, for example, that the United States has 5,113 nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles. Signed on April 8 by the presidents of Russia and the United States, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty (START) provides for the parties to reduce the number of warheads to 1,550 units within seven years. Russia has approximately 2820 of them.
“The Americans didn’t declassify anything special. This is part of the information that Russia and the United States are obliged to exchange under the new agreement,” Pavel Zolotarev, deputy director of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained to Vremya Novostey. In his assessment, “Russia is not ready to completely abandon its nuclear arsenal, because it is a deterrent weapon that ensures security”: “It is unlikely that the Americans will be forced to give up these weapons either.”
The conference will be considered successful if it ends with the adoption of a document on new measures to combat nuclear proliferation (at the previous such event in 2005, it was not possible to agree on a final statement).