UNITED NATIONS, September 26. /TASS/. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has urged Russia and the United States to resume nuclear disarmament.
"With humanity's future, it starts with nuclear weapons. States honoring their commitments and meeting their disarmament obligations until nuclear weapons are eliminated," he pointed out at a high-level meeting marking the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Guterres emphasized "the utmost transparency of all matters related to nuclear weapons" and called on all countries to reject their use in all situations.
"Disarmament and non-proliferation are two sides of the same coin. Progress in one spurs progress in the other," the UN chief emphasized.
White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby said earlier that the US was ready to resume talks on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). He said, however, that the onus was on the Russian president.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in turn, pointed out that Russia and the US had a special responsibility in terms of strategic stability and needed to hold talks on the issue as soon as possible.
New START
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 21, 2023, that Moscow was suspending its participation in New START but was not withdrawing from it. The head of state emphasized that before resuming discussions about further activities under the treaty, Russia needed to understand how the arsenals of NATO’s other nuclear-weapons countries, the UK and France, would be taken into account along with US capacities.
The document stipulated that seven years after its entry into effect, each party should have no more than a total of 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and strategic bombers, as well as no more than 1,550 warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs and strategic bombers, and a total of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and strategic bombers.
The ten-year treaty was to expire in February 2021, but Moscow and Washington extended it for a maximum period of five years in February 2021. In February 2021, Moscow and Washington extended the ten-year treaty, described by the Russian authorities as the gold standard of disarmament accords, for the maximum term of five years.