MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/. Moscow has taken note of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s statement about a possible request that Russia deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus to counter NATO’s attempts to do the same in Poland, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov stated on Wednesday.
According to him, Russia is not going to proliferate nuclear weapons on the territory of non-nuclear-weapon countries. "We are not going in this direction, we have heard the signal of President Lukashenko, we take note of it. We are very responsible in terms of our commitments under all agreements. The same is certainly true for Belarus. However, at some point our Western colleagues should stop and think of their own actions," the senior diplomat noted.
According to him, NATO countries with their actions "undermine the existing system of international security," encroaching on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"The present world has been experiencing very serious changes. What previously seemed inviolable, self-evident, suddenly turns into a topic for discussion. Of course, I consider this situation in the context of documents, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Notwithstanding our calls to the US and NATO over many years to settle the situation when on the territory of NATO member countries that are non-nuclear-weapon states, such weapons exist, even in a deployment state, nothing changes.
"This contradiction in their status does not cause any problems within the alliance. Furthermore, recently we have been witnessing muscle-flexing and alarming signals that nuclear weapons can appear somewhere near our borders. I want to ask those who send such signals: do you know that countries bordering Russia are non-nuclear-weapon states? Or the alliance secretariat does not care about the treaty?" he concluded.