New York, Aug 27 : Russia has blocked the joint declaration of the 10th UN conference for a review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which ended today in New York. “To my heartfelt regret that this conference was not able to come to a agreement,” the chairman of the meeting, Gustavo Zlauvinen, said at the end of the meeting on Friday.
In the four-week conference certain states and non-governmental organizations were hoping to establish deadlines for the destruction of nuclear weapons around the world as reported by the dpa news agency.
The Russian representative said that his country was in disagreement with five of the sections of the final version, but he did not provide additional details and said that the Russian position was supported by other nations too.
However in the wake of the Russian statement, representatives from many of nations said they had acquiescence with the announcement and expressed displeasure that no agreement could ever be reached.
Another Russian representative however was unhappy that others used the meeting to settle their accounts with Russia regarding the conflict with Ukraine instead of working towards nuclear disarmament.
The Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty began on August 1 in New York.The treaty, which entered into effect in 1970 and has been signed by 191 nations around the world.Its aim is nuclear disarmament.
However, critics argue that the five nuclear powers including the US, China, the UK, France and Russia are different from countries that have signed the treaty without nuclear weapons.
India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea also possess nuclear weapons According to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) however, they are not parties to the treaty.
Around the world, there were 12700 nuclear warheads in 2022 according to FAS.That’s only a tiny part of the 70,300 weapons at peak of the Cold War in 1986.
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