Russia cast aside its doubts on Monday and joined a US-led alliance of countries prepared to board ships and raid suspect factories in a crackdown against weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Moscow become the 15th core member of US President George W. Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) just as it began a meeting in the southern Polish city of Krakow.
Bush launched the initiative, designed to stop such arms ending up in states viewed with distrust by Washington, such as North Korea and Iran, during a visit to Krakow a year ago.
"The threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is global and accordingly requires a global response," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "We are sure that we can cope with the problem only through a collective effort."
US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton said in Krakow the search for ships carrying WMD would greatly benefit from the involvement of Russia's vast navy.
"We worked for this from the start of this initiative," Bolton told reporters. "I expect that the United States and Russia will now enhance our intelligence sharing in the area of trafficking of weapons of mass destruction."
Russia initially had strong reservations about Bush's initiative, fearing that a right to intercept suspicious vessels could give a legal role of global policeman to the US, which has the strongest naval presence across the world.
Another concern was the PSI could be used to hamper Russia's commercial interests because it trades with many countries at odds with Washington.
The PSI aims to improve the legal structure for inspect arms shipments, tighten controls over exports of nuclear materials and remove barriers for intelligence sharing between countries to keep terror groups from getting their hands on WMD.
"The failure of concerted action would only mean more chaos and unpredictability," Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz told delegates.
"There is no blueprint, no plan for the perfect international order. We won't be able to move towards it without failures but we must have clear signposts on this road," he said.
Russia announced its decision to join a week before a summit of the G8 major industrial nations at Sea Island, Georgia, where the PSI is going to be high on the agenda.
Russia said it would contribute to the PSI if this did not violate international or domestic law.
"We assume that actions within this initiative should not and will not create obstacles to legal economic, scientific and technical cooperation," the Foreign Ministry said.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
A US federal judge on Tuesday ordered US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt efforts to shut down Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the news broadcasts of which are funded by the government to export US values to the world. US District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is overseeing six lawsuits from employees and contractors affected by the shutdown of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), ordered the administration to “take all necessary steps” to restore employees and contractors to their positions and resume radio, television and online news broadcasts. USAGM placed more than 1,000
RSS