NATO in talks to put nuclear weapons on standby

YEREVAN, JUNE 17, ARMENPRESS. NATO is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with The Telegraph.

The head of the alliance added that the bloc must show its nuclear arsenal to the world to send a direct message to its foes.

“I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues. That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Stoltenberg said in the interview at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Secretary General Stoltenberg said nuclear transparency should be the cornerstone of NATO’s nuclear strategy to prepare the alliance for what he described as a more dangerous world.

“Transparency helps to communicate the direct message that we, of course, are a nuclear alliance,” Stoltenberg is quoted by The Telegraph as saying. “NATO’s aim is, of course, a world without nuclear weapons, but as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will remain a nuclear alliance, because a world where Russia, China and North Korea have nuclear weapons, and NATO does not, is a more dangerous world.”

He warned that China in particular was investing heavily in modern weaponry including its nuclear arsenal, which he said would grow to 1,000 warheads by as early as 2030.

According to Stoltenberg in a not-very-distant future NATO may face something that it has never faced before, “and that is two nuclear-powered potential adversaries – China and Russia.”