Russia blocks final statement at UN nuke treaty conference
Russia blocked adoption of a joint statement to close out a United Nations conference on an ongoing nuclear arms treaty, Western officials said, a diplomatic broadside that underscored the ramifications of the war in Ukraine.
Moscow’s representatives at the monthlong conference objected late Friday to language in the agreement that raised concerns about Ukraine, the Russian state news agency Tass reported.
The final document needed approval of all countries at the conference that are parties to the treaty aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear weapons and ultimately achieving a world without them.
Argentine Ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen, president of the conference, said the final draft represented his best efforts to address divergent views and the expectations of the parties “for a progressive outcome” at a moment in history when “our world is increasingly wracked by conflicts, and, most alarmingly, the ever-growing prospect of the unthinkable nuclear war.”
The conference — on upholding and strengthening the 50-year-old global Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons — is held every five years and had once been seen as a chance to deal with loopholes that have allowed a resurgence in the spread of nuclear weapons.
A high-ranking Russian diplomat in Moscow’s delegation, Andrei Belousov, blamed the lack of agreement on efforts by other nations to use the document “to settle scores with Russia, raising topics that are not directly related to the treaty.”
“The conference has become a political hostage to those states that over the last four weeks poisoned discussions with their politicized, biased, groundless and false statements with regard to Ukraine,” Belousov said in a statement at the close of the session.
Western officials immediately slammed Russia, which early on had included discussions on the threat of a nuclear confrontation or a nuclear accident emerging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia obstructed progress by refusing to compromise on proposed text accepted by all other states,” Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, wrote on Twitter.
The conference was taking place after a two-year delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Highlevel representatives from member states, including the U.S. secretary of state, attended.
U.S. officials made clear that Russia’s objections were related to Ukraine.
“We were not able to achieve a consensus document because of the inexplicable choice of one state,” the U.S. special representative for nuclear nonproliferation, Adam Scheinman, wrote on Twitter. “The U.S. deeply regrets Russia’s refusal to acknowledge the grave situation in Ukraine. It is absurd that Russia could not do so.”