Russia proposed a treaty today to ban weapons in space after warning their development could lead to a new arms race and a repeat of the cold war.
The draft treaty, presented by Russia and China to a UN-sponsored forum, would ban the deployment of weapons in space and the use or threat of force against satellites or other spacecraft, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"Weapons deployment in space by one state will inevitably result in a chain reaction," Mr Lavrov said. "This, in turn, is fraught with a new spiral in the arms race both in space and on Earth."
Tensions between Russia and the United States have deepened in recent years over US plans to revive its stalled "Star Wars" programme from the 1980s with new missile defence shields.
Nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction are banned from space under a 1967 international treaty, but Washington's plans have caused concerns about non-nuclear arms in space.
The Conference on Disarmament has failed in the last 10 years to reach the consensus needed to begin talks on any issue.
Moscow has repeatedly denounced US plans to build part of the missile shield infrastructure in former Soviet states in Europe.
Mr Lavrov said the nuclear arms race had led to the Cold War, "which lasted over four decades and resulted in a gigantic waste of material and other resources at the expense of finding solutions to the problem of development".
"Is it worthwhile to repeat the history?" he said.
