The United States is hosting the International Nuclear Security Summit. It is known that leaders from more than 50 countries have arrived in Washington. However, such countries as Russia, North Korea and Iran will not be represented at the summit.
The key issue on the Nuclear Security Summit agenda will be the issue of the growing nuclear threat from individual countries and terrorist groups.
Russia refused to participate in the Nuclear Security Summit due to the lack of cooperation with partners on this issue. According to the presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the study of the issues related to nuclear safety requires common and joint efforts and mutual consideration of interests and positions.
"We experienced a clear deficit in the preliminary study of the issues and topics of the summit. So in this case there will be no participation of the Russian side," TASS cited Peskov as saying.
It should be noted that this format was proposed by US President Barack Obama in 2009 to develop new mechanisms to substantially reduce the nuclear threats facing our planet. This is the fourth meeting of world leaders (summits have been held every second spring since 2010), which is scheduled to be the last.
The editor-in-chief of 'National Defense' magazine, Igor Korotchenko, stressed in conversation with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza that "a security system, which ensures the absence of any incidents involving nuclear materials, has been created in Russia and these summits have no practical relevance for our country."
At the same time, the expert pointed out that, despite the fact that North Korea is now perceived as the world's main nuclear threat, "it is a sovereign power, which conducts nuclear tests because of the threat of US intervention." "Therefore, if the United States reduces the number of joint exercises with South Korea, rehearsing an attack on North Korea, then maybe Pyongyang would not have an urgent desire to acquire nuclear weapons," he said.
According to Korotchenko, the global nuclear security is provided by the IAEA control system, "which is carried out in the framework of the relevant procedures for compliance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," so the Washington summit, which looks like a political game, is of little interest.
A member of the European Research Centre of the International Relations Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Olenchenko, pointed out that the problem of nuclear safety since 1949 has never lost its relevance and it occupies a very important place in Russia's foreign policy.
"It has also been given a lot of attention at the international level. In the first place, to the expansion of the legal framework for the prevention of nuclear proliferation. Secondly, Russia is making a lot of effort to ensure that already existing treaties and agreements are implemented," he emphasized.
Speaking about the relevance of the Washington summit and the arms race, Olenchenko noted that the United States, as the organizer of the event, is building an agenda and the course of the summit in order to create a further advantage in the context of the modernization of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and Germany.
"This fact is a serious concern for Russia and other sane countries," the expert said, adding that Russia, while discussing its participation in the summit, demanded that the issue of non-deployment of nuclear weapons on the territory of other countries by Moscow and Washington be considered.
"And the second point is that at different tactical maneuvers on the possible use of nuclear weapons we are most concerned about Europe and South Korea. That is, the military of those countries, which don't have any nuclear weapons, take part in these maneuvers. And the US reluctance to discuss this question casts doubt on the need for Russia's presence at the International Nuclear Security Summit," the analyst noted.
According to the expert, the facts show that the summit in Washington was organized due to US interests, not to strengthen nuclear security in the world, as there are two tendencies in the US now: the modernization of weapons and the search for new ways to use nuclear weapons," Vladimir Olenchenko stated.
