UN chief hails new US-Russia pact on arms cut
By IANSFriday, March 26, 2010
UNITED NATIONS - The new agreement between Russia and the US to reduce their arsenals is an “important milestone” in global efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said.
Negotiations between the two nuclear powers on a successor agreement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), wrapped up Friday and both the parties agreed to sign the deal in April.
The existing START treaty is to expire in December. The new pact will require both sides to cut their deployed nuclear warheads, missiles and launchers.
Congratulating Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his US counterpart Barack Obama on finalising the deal, Ban expressed hope that the “new treaty can be ratified without delay so as to allow its expeditious implementation”.
The UN chief asked both nations to press ahead with efforts to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons, encouraging other nuclear-weapon states to follow their example, Xinhua reported.
He also hoped that the Friday’s announcement will give “significant impetus” to the review conference on the UN-backed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) scheduled to be held in May this year.
