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NO GUARANTEE OF WEAPONS-FREE OUTER SPACE

RIA Novosti

MOSCOW, March 24 (RIA Novosti) - The participants of the International Conference on Safeguarding Space Security in Geneva have admitted that existing norms do not guard against weapons emplacement in outer space, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated in a press release.

The Conference on Safeguarding Space Security: Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space, which met on March 21-22, was organized by Russia, China, the Canadian Simons Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Research and the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).

Conference participants considered questions concerning threats to space security at the present stage, and possible negative consequences of positioning weapons in outer space for strategic stability.

"Many delegates admitted that the existing norms of the International Space Law did not contain a general ban on the emplacement of weapons in outer space," the ministry noted.

The document says that the conference is in favor of the necessity of immediate actions in preventing weapons in outer space.

Russia's new initiative to not be the first to deploy weapons of any type to outer space, received broad support at the conference. Participants called upon other states to take this stance, what could amount to the first significant step towards a general ban on the emplacement of weapons in outer space.

Participants also discussed proposals set forth by Russia and China to work out a new international agreement on the prevention of weapons and the use of force and the threat of force in outer space, and also considered possible mechanisms of enforcing such a ban.

More than a hundred representatives of the member states of the Conference on Disarmament and its observers, experts from foreign, defense and space ministries, government departments and non-government organizations attended the conference.

Moscow believes that the results of the Geneva conference "will help promote theideas of preserving the peaceful status of outer space."

The Russian Foreign Ministry is also for the earliest resumption of the Conference on Disarmament's activities.

"It is just the right specialized international forum for working out new agreements on preventing the emplacement of weapons in outer space," the ministry said.