Geneva: Russia has again warned the
international community about the danger of militarization of
outer space.
At the conference on disarmament in Geneva, it called for an
urgent review of the Russian-Chinese draft international
treaty to prevent the deployment of weapons in space.
The world has already accumulated the potential enabling
it to deploy weapons in near Earth orbits and put spacecraft
out of order.
"A build-up of this potential will be increasing its
destabilizing influence," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov warned on yesterday.
It is the wish to prevent the worst scenario that guided
Russia and China as they brought forward in February 2008 a
draft treaty on preventing the deployment of weapons in outer
space.
"We assume that such a treaty should fix the legal
commitments on parity basis, without dividing the countries
into those that "can" have weapons in space and those that
"cannot," he said.
"We`re hoping for the soonest beginning of substantive
work on the Russian-Chinese project," Lavrov underlined, "if
we do not get down to it without delay, we may lose time. We
are confident that preventing the appearance of weapons in
space is extremely necessary for the predictability of the
strategic situation on the Earth.
"Let`s not forget that the chimera of the nuclear monopoly
led to the arms race, whose inertia we`re only beginning to
overcome," the Russian diplomat said.
He noted that the approval by the UN General Assembly of
the resolution -- which Russia co-authored with a group of
states -- on measures of transparency and confidence-building
in outer space was an indicator of the growing awareness in
many countries of the significance of the problem.
"We`ll be seeking further consolidation of the
international community`s efforts in this crucial issue,"
Lavrov underlined.
PTI
