OREANDA-NEWS. July 2, 2008. “We stand for imparting to the NTP a universal character and for ensuring the full-scale and effective operation of the Treaty in the future,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation says in its Statement in Connection with the 40th Anniversary of the Opening of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons for Signature.

“The Treaty is a time-tested document. It has proven its role as a major tool to contain the danger of the spread of nuclear weapons and laid conditions for irreversible progress in disarmament, primarily nuclear. The NPT has also guaranteed the development of broad international cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Its indefinite prolongation in 1995 constituted evidence of this.

The past years have convincingly shown the effectiveness of the balanced structure of the parties’ commitments contained in the NPT. The Treaty is indispensable to all countries – big and small, nuclear and non-nuclear.

We are certain that the new challenges to the nuclear nonproliferation regime that have arisen over the recent period can and should be removed first of all on the basis of the NPT. It is necessary to ensure the full-scale and effective operation of the Treaty in the future as well.

In this context we attach great significance to the preparation and holding of the next NPT Review Conference in 2010. The chief task during this process is to reach consensus in understanding problems hindering the effective functioning of the nonproliferation regime and to arrive at a common position on the elaboration of mechanisms for its reinforcement and agree recommendations capable of ensuring further implementation of the provisions of the NPT and its states parties’ unconditional fulfillment of their obligations under the Treaty.

As a state party to the NPT and as one of its depositaries the Russian Federation has been consistently fulfilling its NPT obligations and reaffirms its firm and invariable support of this Treaty.

We stand for imparting to the NTP a universal character, and urge all countries which have not yet done so to accede to the Treaty,” says the Statement published on the web-site of the MFA.