SAN FRANCISCO, December 1. /TASS/. Russia does not support the initiatives aimed at total nuclear disarmament without regard to security interests, Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said on Thursday.
"In various corners of the international community, attempts are being made to develop a new agreement that completely bans nuclear weapons and to compel nuclear powers to sign it, or even to create such a treaty without nuclear powers," the ambassador said in his speech at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. "This is impossible."
"This is useless. We will never support such an idea. As far as I understand, the US has the same stance," he went on.
The Russian diplomat also said that "attempts to seek nuclear disarmament without participation of countries with military nuclear potential, in defiance of their legitimate security interests" may lead to "imbalance in the existing UN disarmament mechanisms" and undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime.