Russia would support a nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament agenda laid out by U.S. President Barack Obama if Washington adhered to terms including a prohibition against space-based nuclear weapons, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday (see GSN, April 6).
(Apr. 21) -
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, shown yesterday, pressed the United States to support a ban on space-based nuclear weapons (Jussi Nukari/Getty Images).
Speaking in Prague on April 5, Obama vowed to push for Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ratification, roll back the U.S. nuclear arsenal and take new steps to curb nuclear proliferation (see GSN, April 20).
Moscow and Washington this month are set to begin talks on reducing their nuclear stockpiles under a follow-up pact to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (see GSN, April 17).
"We noted what was said by the U.S. president in Prague that (disarmament) can be reached under a number of conditions," Medvedev said in a speech in Helsinki, according to Reuters. "These conditions are fair, but I would want to cite more conditions needed to achieve such a treaty."
Along with the space weapons bans, Moscow's demands include requiring nuclear weapons to be eliminated rather than merely removed from their delivery vehicles and banning conventional force buildups aimed at offsetting nuclear-weapon reductions (see GSN, June 18, 2008).
Medvedev also reaffirmed Russian opposition to a European missile shield planned under the Bush administration (see GSN, April 17). Obama has not formally said whether he plans to deploy the defenses, which would include 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.
"We are very concerned about the prospects of a unilateral deployment of antimissile systems ... which complicates nuclear disarmament," Medvedev said. "Truly global antimissile defense cannot match the interests of only one or several states. Its parameters cannot be set unilaterally" (Young/Dyomkin, Reuters, April 20).