MOSCOW, July 26. /TASS/. The format of the five nuclear-weapons states (NWS) comprised of Russia, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France is not at its best because of the West but Russia has managed to keep it afloat, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"Bearing in mind the West-provoked deplorable situation in relations between the nuclear powers, it is no surprise that the five NWS format is not at its best," she said. "Due to obvious reasons, participants in the format have these or those political restrictions on cooperation and quite serious, often fundamental, contradictions on the topics under discussion."
"It would be strange to expect any serious achievements from the NWS now," she noted. "Today, we can say that the Russian side has fulfilled its major task of keeping this format afloat."
Russia, according to Zakharova, doesn’t rule out that "at some point in the future, when conditions are favorable, the NWS will be able to play a significant role and generate the added value the sides wanted to have when this dialogue platform was created in linkage to the review process on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."
The Russian diplomat noted that Russia has only given preliminary assessment of the year’s work because its mandate as an NWS coordinator country has not yet expired an it is too early to sum up final results. "Over the period of its coordinatorship, Russia has managed to preserve the necessary fundament for the NWS format to continue functioning," she stated. "It is important that the five countries are maintaining a channel that makes it possible to send significant signals and inform about their principled approaches. This is already much in the current situation."
Apart from that, she confirmed that the "program of the working event within the NWS format had been implemented." The last event of Russia’s program for 2023-2024 was held in Geneva on July 23. Russia will soon hand over coodinatorship to China.