Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register UNITED NATIONS, Aug 1 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday he was ready to pursue a new nuclear weapons deal with Russia and called on Moscow to act in good faith as his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin said that there can be no winners in every nuclear war. Both leaders issued written statements as diplomats gathered for a month-long United Nations conference to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It was supposed to take place in 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It is happening at a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the conference. “Humanity is only one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.” Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register He warned that “nuclear-tinged” crises are flaring up, citing the Middle East, North Korea and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Days after Russia’s February 24 invasion, Putin put the country’s deterrents — which include nuclear weapons — on alert, citing aggressive statements by NATO leaders and Western economic sanctions against Moscow. But in a letter to participants at the NPT review conference, Putin wrote: “There can be no winners in a nuclear war and it must never be launched, and we stand for equal and indivisible security for all members of the world community.” read more Arms control has traditionally been an area in which global progress has been possible despite wider disagreements. The UN conference comes five months after Russia invaded Ukraine and as US-China tensions flare on Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by Beijing. read more
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Moscow and Washington last year extended the New START treaty, which limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads they can deploy and limits land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers, until 2026. “My administration is ready to quickly negotiate a new arms control framework to replace New START when it expires in 2026,” Biden said. “But negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith.” “Russia must demonstrate that it is ready to resume nuclear arms control work with the United States,” he said. But Russia’s UN mission questioned whether the United States was ready to negotiate, accusing Washington of pulling out of talks with Moscow on strategic stability over the conflict in Ukraine. “It is time for Washington to decide, stop rushing and tell us frankly what it wants – to escalate the situation in the field of international security or start equal negotiations,” the Russian mission to the UN said in a statement. Biden also called on China “to engage in talks that will reduce the risk of miscalculation and address destabilizing military dynamics.” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told the UN conference that Washington was committed to seeking a comprehensive risk reduction package that would include secure channels of communication between nuclear-weapon states. “We stand ready to work with all partners, including China and others, on risk reduction and strategic stability efforts,” he said. Blinken also said a return to the 2015 nuclear deal remains the best outcome for the United States, Iran and the world, and again accused North Korea of preparing for a seventh nuclear test. read more Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged all nuclear powers to behave “responsibly”. Kishida is from Hiroshima, which on August 6, 1945 became the first city in the world to suffer a nuclear bomb. read more “The world is concerned that the threat of the destruction of the use of nuclear weapons has emerged once again,” he told the conference. “It must be said that the road to a world without nuclear weapons has suddenly become even more difficult.” Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Reporting by Susan Heavey and Simon Lewis in Washington, Mark Trevelyan in London. edited by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
