Maas calls for concrete steps for nuclear disarmament

Since the summit of the nuclear powers USA and Russia there have been vague hopes that something could happen again in terms of nuclear disarmament.

A conference in Madrid with Heiko Maas wants to hook it up.

Berlin / Madrid - Before a disarmament conference in Madrid, Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called for concrete steps to reduce nuclear weapons worldwide.

He pointed out that US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin had committed three weeks ago to avoid a nuclear confrontation at all costs.

"We have to build on this now - through clear steps with which the nuclear-weapon states meet their obligation and responsibility for disarmament," said Maas on Monday before his flight to Madrid.

In the Spanish capital he takes part in deliberations of the so-called Stockholm Initiative, in which 16 countries have come together to promote the reduction of nuclear weapons worldwide.

“Where tensions and mistrust predominate, there is also a threat of a new arms race.

Therefore, more than ever, we need steps that create trust through verifiable agreements between nuclear weapon states, ”said Maas.

Biden and Putin agreed on arms control talks at their meeting in Geneva in mid-June. According to Russian information, they should start before mid-July. As early as February, Russia and the USA had agreed on an extension of the New Start nuclear disarmament treaty. It limits the nuclear arsenals of both countries to 800 carrier systems and 1,550 ready-to-use nuclear warheads.

According to the annual report published in June by the Stockholm peace research institute Sipri, the number of nuclear weapons worldwide fell by 320 to 13,080 between the beginning of 2020 and the beginning of 2021.

However, the researchers rate another number as worrying: the number of nuclear warheads that are already mounted on missiles or are on active bases.

Their number rose year-on-year from 3720 to 3825. The USA and Russia added around 50 each.

In a guest post for the "Rheinische Post" (Monday), Maas and his counterparts from Spain and Sweden, Arancha González Laya and Ann Linde, called on all nuclear powers to significantly reduce their arsenals and lay the foundation for a "new generation of arms control agreements" to lay.

They also called for the end of all nuclear tests.

Maas is also holding bilateral talks in Madrid. Among other things, he should talk to the Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya about combating the corona pandemic. In Spain, the most popular holiday destination for Germans, the number of infections has risen significantly again. With Catalonia, the federal government only classified one of the most popular holiday regions in the country as a corona risk area again this Sunday. dpa