RUSSIA HAS warned that it could withdraw from a new nuclear arms reduction pact with the United States if it feels threatened by Washington’s planned missile defence system in central Europe.
Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov issued the warning as his president, Dmitry Medvedev, and US counterpart Barack Obama prepared to head to the Czech Republic for tomorrow’s signing of a long-awaited treaty to cut their countries’ arsenals of deployed nuclear warheads by about a third.
As Prague ramped up security for the visit of the two leaders, Mr Obama’s administration yesterday unveiled a new policy renouncing the development of new nuclear warheads and the use of atomic weapons against non-nuclear states. His so-called nuclear posture review left open the possibility of nuclear attack against Iran and North Korea, however, increasing pressure on states that have defied international pressure to halt nuclear programmes.
A year of talks between US and Russian officials will culminate in the signing of a replacement for the 1991 strategic arms limitation treaty, which expired in December.
It was delayed by Russian fears over a missile defence system that the Pentagon wants to deploy near Russia’s borders to neutralise the perceived threat of rocket attack from Iran. Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria have offered to host elements of the system.
“Russia will have the right to opt out of the treaty if . . . the US strategic missile defence begins to significantly affect the efficiency of Russian strategic nuclear forces,” Mr Lavrov said. “We have noted that the US system won’t have a strategic capacity in its early stages,” he added. “We shall see what will happen next. When and if this system gets a strategic capacity, we shall see whether it creates risks for our strategic nuclear forces.”
Perhaps pre-empting a widely anticipated push by Mr Obama for further nuclear cuts once the treaty is signed, Mr Lavrov revealed Moscow’s main missile worries.
“We are convinced that to speak seriously about practical steps toward a world without nuclear weapons, one must pay attention to a whole series of factors that could destabilise global strategic stability,” Mr Lavrov said.
“To move toward a nuclear-free world, it is necessary to resolve the question of non-nuclear-equipped strategic offensive weapons and strategic weapons in general, which are being worked on by the United States, among others.
“World states will hardly accept a situation in which nuclear weapons disappear but weapons that are no less destabilising emerge in the hands of certain members of the international community,” he added.
In a speech in Prague last April, Mr Obama made nuclear disarmament a key aim of his presidency. Ahead of yesterday’s release of his new nuclear strategy, Mr Obama said the US would not launch a nuclear attack against a country that adhered to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, even if it attacked the US with chemical or biological weapons.
According to the nuclear posture review, the US would now focus on “preventing nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation” rather than maintaining a huge cold war-era atomic arsenal that was “poorly suited to address the challenges posed by suicidal terrorists and unfriendly regimes seeking nuclear weapons”.
Commenting on the review, an unnamed senior US defence official said: “We agree that we’ve got a very hard problem in front of us – the fact that states like North Korea and Iran . . . are interested in these capabilities and the means to deliver them.
“And we have, of course, the continuing evidence that al-Qaeda and others are interested in acquiring weapons of mass destruction.”
