Foreign ministers say technology development poses new risks and could spark another arms race
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Spanish and Swedish Foreign Ministers Arancha Gonzalez Laya and Anne Linde called on the nuclear powers to significantly reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons ahead of a meeting with their counterparts at the Stockholm Initiative for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (SIDDR). The ministers said in a joint article published on Monday in the German newspaper Rheinische Post.
“We need progress more than ever. Agreements on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation have continued to erode in recent years. New tensions and mistrust between world powers have prevented further reductions in nuclear arsenals”, – the paper stressed. They recalled that the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, a fundamental arms control instrument, expired in 2019. However, according to the foreign ministers, the development of new technologies only complicates the situation, creates new risks and may provoke another arms race.
The extension of the Strategic Arms Reduction and Limitation Treaty earlier this year, the prospect of new talks between Moscow and Washington on future arms control and risk containment measures, and the commitment to strategic stability expressed by Russian and US presidents at the Geneva meeting in June are “good news” according to the foreign ministers of Germany, Spain and Sweden. “We definitely welcome these positive developments, but we also call on the nuclear-weapon states to take further decisive steps towards disarmament,” the ministers wrote.
“This could include reducing the role of nuclear weapons in their strategies and doctrines, reducing the likelihood of conflict and accidental use of nuclear weapons, further reducing nuclear weapons arsenals and laying the groundwork for [a] new generation of arms control agreements”, – the paper concluded. -“We must once and for all end nuclear weapons testing with the final entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, resume negotiations on a Treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, and create credible conditions for verification of nuclear disarmament steps”, – Maas, Gonzalez Laya and Linde concluded.