Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks at the high-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament, March 1, 2022
1 March 2022 12:38
387-01-03-2022
Mr President, colleagues,
I am glad to speak at the Conference on Disarmament. I hoped I could do so live in Geneva. However, this is impossible due to the European Union's refusal to respect the right to freedom of movement which is a fundamental human right. Having adopted the path of unilateral illegitimate sanctions, the EU countries are trying to avoid a candid face-to-face dialogue or direct contacts designed to help identify political solutions to pressing international issues.
The Ukraine tragedy is the most heated among them and results from the conniving Western patrons' leniency with regard to the criminal regime that formed there in the wake of the bloody anti-constitutional coup in February 2014, which was carried out contrary to the guarantees provided by Germany, Poland and France as part of the agreement on settling the Ukraine crisis. Even then, the putschists' attitude towards European values was clear. Today, the dangers that the Zelensky regime poses to neighbouring countries and international security in general have increased significantly after the Kiev authorities started dangerous games involving plans to obtain their own nuclear weapons.
The irresponsible statements on this score are not empty bravado. Ukraine possesses Soviet nuclear technology and means of delivering these weapons. We cannot fail to respond to this clear danger. Rest assured that as a responsible member of the international community Russia is committed to its non-proliferation pledge, and is taking every necessary measure to prevent the emergence of nuclear weapons and related technology in Ukraine. We hope that everyone understands the need to resolve this problem.
Today, there is a clear need for intensive joint work in order to increase predictability and prevent new rounds of the arms race. Given the circumstances, we must say no to any actions aimed at dismantling the architecture of arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament. It is critically important to refrain from dangerous steps in military construction, which could be perceived as a violation of the principle of equal and indivisible security.
Unfortunately, NATO members refuse to abide by this fundamental principle as they redouble their efforts to contain Russia. Suffice it to mention the efforts to involve the Kiev regime in the orbit of the Alliance, the supplies of lethal weapons to it, as well as conducting provocative military exercises and other activities near Russia's borders.
Our Western colleagues have so far been unwilling to provide Russia with legally binding long-term security guarantees. The issue is about avoiding further expansion of NATO, including the withdrawal of the Bucharest formula under which Ukraine and Georgia are supposed to become the Alliance members. Western countries need to stop creating military facilities within the borders of the states that were part of the Soviet Union and that are not members of the Alliance, including the use of their infrastructure for conducting any type of military activity. It is imperative to roll back military potentials, including the attack military capacities, and NATO infrastructure to where they were in 1997, when the Russia-NATO Founding Act was signed. For us, achieving these goals is of fundamental importance.
I am once again urging the United States, its allies and clients to unfailingly honour their obligations not to strengthen their own security at the expense of others. Obviously, this would help improve the military-political situation in the Euro-Atlantic region and create prerequisites for making headway on the entire range of matters in the field of arms control, including possible work on new agreements.
The UN disarmament mechanism plays a decisive role in the search for ways to overcome the crisis now plaguing the arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation system. The Conference on Disarmament is its key element. The results of its activities directly affect the security of the entire humanity.
Regarding the Conference agenda, we would like to single out the drafting of a multilateral legally binding instrument to prevent an arms race in outer space. The document is aimed at strengthening the international law regime in the sphere of space security. It is common knowledge that the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 contains a ban on the deployment of any type of weapon of mass destruction there. Understandably, this clause does not cover other types of weapons. Certain countries have taken advantage of this circumstance and have started deploying weapons in outer space. Doctrines have been approved, and plans to orbit weapons systems, including strike weapons, are being drafted and implemented. The threat of a new arms race and prospects for turning outer space into an arena for an armed conflict are becoming more obvious. All this is fraught with dire consequences for global stability.
Russia and China have submitted a draft treaty on preventing the deployment of weapons in outer space, the use of force or the threat to use force against space objects to the Conference for consideration. We consider it unacceptable to delay launching these talks. In our opinion, attempts to substitute a legally binding instrument in this field with certain half-measures in the form of rules for a responsible behaviour in outer space are counterproductive.
We are convinced that talks to prevent an arms race in outer space will create a favourable background for making headway on nuclear disarmament, yet another agenda item which Russia is focusing on.
At our initiative, in February 2021, the Russian-US New START Treaty was extended for a period of five years without any preconditions. The presidents of Russia and the United States have agreed to initiate a comprehensive dialogue on strategic stability. Its key objective is to lay the foundations of future arms control and risk reduction measures. We are ready for joint work on a new security equation that would take into account all inter-linked factors of strategic stability.
We find it unacceptable that US nuclear weapons remain on the territory of a number of European countries in circumvention of fundamental provisions of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The faulty practice of joint nuclear missions involving non-nuclear NATO countries still persists. Scenarios for using nuclear weapons against Russia are simulated within their framework. It is high time that US nuclear weapons were returned home and the related infrastructure in Europe, totally dismantled.
We have always proceeded from the premise that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and that it should never be unleashed, and that has not changed. This principle was reaffirmed by the Presidents of Russia and the United States in their joint statement of June 16, 2021, as well as in the joint statement of June 28, 2021, made by the heads of state of Russia and China. It is significant that a joint statement by the leaders of five nuclear states on preventing a nuclear war and on the inadmissibility of an arms race was drafted and approved on January 3, 2022, at Russia's initiative and with its most active participation.
To ensure predictability and restraint in the missile sphere in a situation where the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) had been terminated, Russia unilaterally committed not to be the first to deploy the systems covered by the INF Treaty in the regions where identical US-made systems would not be stationed. We urge the United States and its allies to follow our example. I want to make this crystal clear: Russia has no ground-based short- and intermediate-range missiles and never did. Claiming the opposite means creating a patently false picture and covering up for those who bear the true responsibility for dismantling the INF Treaty.
Russia remains open to initiatives on multilateral negotiating formats for preventing an arms race and strengthening strategic stability. We proceed from the premise that these ideas should be realised on the basis of consensus and with regard for the legitimate interests and concerns of all potential participants.
We hope that the repeatedly delayed 10th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), one of the key elements of the international security and strategic stability system, will be held later this year. It is necessary that the conference take place in a constructive, business-like atmosphere and that following it the participating states reaffirm their readiness to strictly abide by their commitments. Russia is open to interaction with all countries in the interests of the forum's success.
We would like to ask some questions about the controversial plan to create AUKUS, a closed partnership involving Australia, the UK, and the US. It is obvious that AUKUS is having a negative influence on the non-proliferation regime, provoking tensions, and creating prerequisites for a new arms race in the APR and elsewhere.
We hope for progress with regard to the coming into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). But the US position is disappointing. The current US administration has been in office for more than a year, but Washington's former approach, as set out in the 2018 nuclear doctrine that enshrines the refusal to ratify CTBT, has not been revised to this day.
There are continuing efforts to restore the full-scale implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) designed to reach settlement on the Iranian nuclear programme. We hope that they will be a success. There is no reasonable alternative to the JCPOA. Backed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, the obligations under the Nuclear Deal must be strictly observed by everyone without any reservations. We have to state that the current situation is a clear evidence of the fact that Washington's intractability comes at a high cost to global security. A policy based on blackmail and pressure has no prospects.
What is needed is to support the effort to create a zone free from nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD- Free Zone) in the Middle East, as envisaged by the resolution of the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. A positive development was the convocation of two sessions of the Conference in keeping with the UN General Assembly's December 2018 decision. Russia was actively involved in these two forums as an observer. We hope for Israel's accession to this process, as well as for the accession of the United States, the coauthor of the 1995 WMD-Free Zone resolution.
We stand for strengthening the regime of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). We are committed to work constructively in order to successfully hold the BTWC Review Conference. We call on our partners to support Russia's initiatives for strengthening the Convention's institutional foundations.
The state of affairs at the OPCW continues to be a source of deep concern for us. It is a direct outcome of the destructive policy of the United States and its allies to promote the flawed and pernicious concept of the "rules-based order." Western countries have in fact privatised this technical international organisation and subordinated it to their geopolitical ambitions. They are openly using the OPCW Secretariat to exert political pressure on the governments they find "objectionable," against which they come up with multiple unsubstantiated accusations. The international community will benefit from doing its best to prevent the OPCW from becoming a tool for certain states to achieve their unseemly self-serving goals.
Colleagues,
We believe that the conference can turn around the devastating developments in the sphere of arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament and make a major contribution to the strengthening of international security and stability. The Russian initiative to develop an international convention to combat chemical and biological terrorist attacks is aimed at achieving this goal as well. Strengthening the international legal framework for countering WMD terrorism is in the interests of all states.
Provided there is political will, the conference participants can and must overcome differences and achieve mutually acceptable solutions that open the way to resume talks. There are chances to achieve this. We look forward to the group of six presidents of the 2022 Conference session making its contribution.
Thank you and I wish you every success.
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