Russia: position of Ukrainian politicians creates serious threat to NPT

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MOSCOW. March 25 (Interfax) – Russia has rejected the claims of a Ukrainian delegate to the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague that Russia is allegedly threatening the security of nuclear sites in Ukraine.

“This is a pure and simple attempt to shift the blame,” the Russian delegation said in a statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

“The dysfunctional ‘new Kyiv authorities’ may pose a threat to the security of Ukrainian nuclear sites under the current Ukrainian circumstances but this is definitely not Russia,” it stressed.

“In addition, Batkivshchyna and UDAR deputies of the ruling Ukrainian coalition have lately put forward a legislative initiative of the Ukrainian secession from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),” the Russian delegation noted.

“We do not trust attempts of the Ukrainian delegate to dissociate from this position. The NPT is in serious danger,” the statement runs.

The statement also pointed to “the appeals of Maidan leaders for blasting gas pipelines that go through the Ukrainian territory and to start cooperation with international terrorism professionals.”

“To make this picture complete, we have to say that in spite of the openly hostile policy of the incumbent Ukrainian authorities, the Russian Federation continues to fully comply with its commitments to Ukraine, including the delivery of nuclear fuel and the acceptance of spent nuclear fuel, which helps provide nuclear security of Ukraine,” the statement said.

Russia hopes that “the extremist trends in Ukrainian politics will be given an objective international evaluation and be deterred in an adequate way, in particular because it damages international efforts to strengthen the regime of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and to build up physical nuclear security,” it said.

In the words of the Russian delegation, the Kyiv official claimed that Russia was allegedly breaching the promises it made under the Budapest Memorandum concerning Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“We absolutely cannot agree with this. The Kyiv government which came to power as a result of an anti-constitutional revolt has actually blasted Ukrainian unity with its policy, primarily the policy as regards to national minorities,” the statement stressed.

“The revolt struck on chords of Ukrainian sovereignty. Under those c ircumstances the autonomous republic of Crimea could no longer be a part of Ukraine and declared its independence in strict compliance with the UN Charter,” it said.

“We did not partake in Budapest to force Ukrainian [territorial] parts to stay, despite of the will of their residents. After the Republic of Crimea declared its independence, it held a democratic referendum in which nearly 97% of the Crimean people decided on the accession of their country to the Russian Federation. But this is a different story, which has nothing to do with the Budapest Memorandum and Ukraine,” the statement said.

“Hence, references to the Budapest Memorandum are void from the legal point of view and illegal from the political point of view,” the Russian delegation stressed.

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