UNITED NATIONS, August 1. /TASS/. Washington is committed to reducing the role of nuclear weapons and preventing an arms race, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday at a Non-Proliferation Treaty Review conference in the UN headquarters in New York.
"The United States is committed to reducing the role of nuclear weapons and reestablishing our leadership on arms control. We have undertaken a deliberate policy review toward that goal," he said. "We will continue to emphasize strategic stability, seek to avoid costly arms race, facilitate risk reduction and arms control agreements wherever they are possible."
"Any country that asks others to reject pursue of nuclear weapons also has to be willing to reduce and eventually eliminate their own stockpiles of nuclear weapons," he emphasized.
The Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is organized every fifth year. The tenth conference was originally planned to be held in New York in May 2020 but was postponed to August 1-26, 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Treaty was signed in 1968 and legalized nuclear arsenals of the United Kingdom, China, Russia, the United States, and France. Other signatory states are obliged not to develop or purchase weapons of mass destruction. More than 190 states have signed the Treaty. However, Israel, India, and Pakistan are not its parties. In January 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Treaty.