Moscow demands withdrawal from the NPT and lifting sanctions on North Korea
Russia so far did not lift sanctions on North Korea only because it is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The head of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Leonid Kalashnikov, stated this on the Rossiya 1 TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Can the State Duma initiate the issue of easing or completely lifting sanctions against North Korea?” - asked Solovyov.
“The fact is that North Korea is under sanctions in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. So is Iran. That is why we vote in the Security Council, this is specifically a directive of the President of the Russian Federation. We are against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which means we vote against it.
This diplomatic snag sometimes gets in the way. We need to get out of these sanctions, but this is getting in the way,” Kalashnikov explained.
“Is the Duma in the same branch of government as the president?” – Solovyov asked.
According to the deputy, there is a procedure by which the State Duma can submit appeals to the President of the Russian Federation.
“Do you want the Duma to officially convert? Please. I applied, for example, about awarding the title of Hero of Russia to Alexander Zakharchenko. There are certain regulations - we turned to the Duma Council, they are considering it. Then there is an appeal to the president.
It is possible, of course, to withdraw from this agreement using such a denunciation procedure. So there is this little fork there, and the non-proliferation treaty is actually beneficial to us,” he said.
However, Vladimir Solovyov objected that in the current situation for Russia, the non-proliferation treaty no longer makes sense.
“The non-proliferation treaty makes sense if the country does not face the question of survival. Libya did not take the path of creating weapons of mass destruction. And it was destroyed. And North Korea was forced to take this step.
Is the deployment of American nuclear weapons at the Incirlik base in Turkey a proliferation or not? And the presence of American nuclear weapons in Germany means proliferation?” the TV presenter was indignant.
However, Kalashnikov did not explain why the State Duma has not yet taken the initiative to lift sanctions on Russia’s ally. Apparently, another ally of Pyongyang and a member of the UN Security Council, China, is in the same awkward situation.
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