Moscow’s withdrawal from bilateral nuclear security cooperation efforts and hardball rhetoric on the nuclear front has endangered international stability and destroyed trust between Russia and the U.S., former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) said yesterday during a panel discussion in Washington. “The rhetoric that’s being used now by Russia about nuclear weapons is, in my view, not only irresponsible, but very dangerous, because it sends signals,” Nunn, who co-chairs the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), told attendees of an event at Georgetown University focusing on 21st century nuclear security threats. “It may not be intended; it may be a political-type rhetoric. But one of my Russian friends said the other day, ‘Words can become deeds.’”
A Sunday Associated Press
article reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had been ready to bring its nuclear weapons into a state of alert during last year’s unrest in Crimea. The words come three months after Russian officials decided to cancel a program which involved U.S. help in securing the country’s highly enriched uranium and plutonium stockpiles. The bilateral effort dates back to the 1990s. “We’re going through a phase now which is extremely dangerous,” Nunn said.
Nunn was joined by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.); Des Browne, NTI Vice Chair and former U.K. Secretary of State for Defence; and former Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), President of the Lugar Center, a nonprofit focusing on nonproliferation. Fortenberry raised the possibility of talking with Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak to revive bilateral cooperative threat reduction programs. “That’s something that I am actually considering doing just of late, because it’s so critical,” Fortenberry said. “There’s no reason for this to go away, even in the midst of very significant tensions.”
