MOSCOW JULY 31. Russia may end its 13-year-old moratorium on nuclear weapons tests if the U.S. resumes nuclear testing.
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said today Russia would honour its self-imposed ban on nuclear testing only as long as other nuclear powers do not stage nuclear blasts.
He was clearly referring to U.S. moves to resume production of nuclear bomb components and refurbish its nuclear test site in Nevada.
"Russia has assumed a number of very serious restrictive international obligations and has not been holding nuclear tests for many years now," Mr. Putin said on a visit to Russia's main nuclear centre in Sarov on Thursday. ":We intend to honour our commitments in the future as well, but only under certain obligatory conditions, one of the main among them being a similar compliance of other nuclear powers with their commitments."
For his part, the Russian Atomic Energy Minister, Alexander Rumyantsev, said today that "Russia's nuclear arsenals are fully combat ready and all its weapons are top-notch and capable of overcoming different (defence) systems."
Russia has not tested nuclear weapons since 1990 when it declared a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. Russia has also ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, whereas the U.S. Congress has refused to approve the treaty, even though the U.S. did sign it.
However, after the U.S. launched a $2.5-billion programme to rebuild the industrial machinery of nuclear warhead production in 2001, the Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, last year announced plans to renovate Russia's only nuclear test range on the Novaya Zemlya island beyond the Arctic Circle.
The U.S. administration's draft budget proposal for 2004 calls for spending $500 million on building new plutonium cores for nuclear warheads, restarting production of tritium and increasing the readiness of the Nevada Test Site.
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