Russia accused the United States on Tuesday of carrying out preparatory work at a nuclear testing site in Nevada but said that Moscow would not restart its own nuclear testing programme unless Washington did.
The comments, by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, come as Russia’s lower house of parliament urgently studies how to revoke Moscow’s ratification of a landmark treaty banning nuclear tests and as tensions with the West are at their highest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
“The indications are that there is or was, at least until recently, (preparatory) work underway at the Nevada Testing Site,” the TASS state news agency cited Ryabkov as saying.
The facility Ryabkov referred to is located in a vast tract of desert where hundreds of nuclear explosions have been detonated since 1951.
Ryabkov was cited by Russian news agencies as saying that Russia felt it had no choice but to align itself with Washington’s nuclear testing stance.
The Russian foreign ministry was preparing draft legislation to de-ratify the treaty and Moscow would still interact with the organisation that oversees the test ban after de-ratification, Ryabkov was cited as saying.
Robert Floyd, head of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty Organization, said a day earlier that Russia’s actions concerned him and that he had been in touch with senior Russian officials to make the case for continued ratification, something he said was in the interests of humanity as a whole.
The original article contains 557 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The comments, by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, come as Russia’s lower house of parliament urgently studies how to revoke Moscow’s ratification of a landmark treaty banning nuclear tests and as tensions with the West are at their highest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
“The indications are that there is or was, at least until recently, (preparatory) work underway at the Nevada Testing Site,” the TASS state news agency cited Ryabkov as saying.
The facility Ryabkov referred to is located in a vast tract of desert where hundreds of nuclear explosions have been detonated since 1951.
Ryabkov was cited by Russian news agencies as saying that Russia felt it had no choice but to align itself with Washington’s nuclear testing stance.
The Russian foreign ministry was preparing draft legislation to de-ratify the treaty and Moscow would still interact with the organisation that oversees the test ban after de-ratification, Ryabkov was cited as saying.
Robert Floyd, head of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty Organization, said a day earlier that Russia’s actions concerned him and that he had been in touch with senior Russian officials to make the case for continued ratification, something he said was in the interests of humanity as a whole.
The original article contains 557 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!