TOKYO, August 4. /TASS/. An immediate renunciation of nuclear arms could reduce Russia’s security amid growing external threats and heighten the risk of a military confrontation with the West, Russian Ambassador to Japan Mikhail Galuzin warned on Thursday.

"At this stage, possessing nuclear arms represents the only possible response to very specific external threats that are not only weakening but, on the contrary, are increasingly growing. An immediate renunciation of nuclear arms would weaken our country’s security sharpy and heighten the risk of a major military confrontation with the West which refuses to recognize our basic security interests," he said at a roundtable meeting on nuclear disarmament in Hiroshima.

Galuzin said Russia did share commitments to action towards achieving a non-nuclear world.

"However, steps in such a sensitive sphere should not undermine global stability or deepen international fragmentation," the Russian envoy said. Any real progress towards nuclear disarmament could only be made using gradual calibrated measures that do not hamper either equal security or efforts to maintain a strategic balance, he added.