Stockholm (dpa)- Germany’s new Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wants to quickly reach concrete agreements for new steps in disarmament policy. “Nuclear disarmament urgently needs new impetus,” she said on Tuesday before leaving for a disarmament conference in the Swedish capital Stockholm. Central to her efforts is the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York this January.
“The entire international community has a joint responsibility to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again,” Baerbock stressed. For years, however, there has been no agreement on new steps towards nuclear disarmament. On the contrary, she said, important elements of the arms control architecture have fallen away as a result of the INF Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty.
At the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference that will begin in New York in January, she wants to achieve concrete agreements to give the Treaty “new credibility and thus also practical validity”, said Baerbock. “We cannot afford another review conference that has no tangible results.” In Stockholm, she said, she will be consulting with other committed partners on how to take a substantial step towards the common goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.
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