Global Security Newswire, 2 Mar 2011.

Russia has pressed all governments that are not yet Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signatories to join the agreement. The pact has been ratified by 153 nations, including Russia and 34 more of the 44 states whose full endorsement is required for the international prohibition on nuclear test blasts to enter into force.

Holdouts among that group of "Annex 2" states are China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States. "The disarmament agenda includes a number of priority issues that need to be resolved and can be resolved today," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the international Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland. "The task of enacting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as soon as possible is particularly important. We once again call on all of the countries that have not yet signed and ratified the treaty to do so."

"Unilateral moratoriums on nuclear tests are useful, but they cannot substitute this obligation, which is key to global security," Lavrov said.

The official also called for the withdrawal of all nonstrategic nuclear weapons to their countries of origin, Interfax reported. Russia is believed to have 2,000 battlefield nuclear bombs deployed within its borders, while a recent analysis estimated that no more than 200 U.S. tactical weapons remain fielded at bases around Europe.

The United States last month expressed willingness to pursue dialogue with Russia on potential further curbs to tactical and other nuclear weapons, RIA Novosti noted today.

All nuclear powers should reduce their atomic arsenals in keeping with Russian and U.S. efforts to that end, Lavrov said. The New START pact, which took effect on February 5, calls for Moscow and Washington to each cap their deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550, down from a limit of 2,200 required by 2012 under an earlier treaty. It also sets a ceiling of 700 deployed warhead delivery systems, with another 100 allowed in reserve.

"The joining of all nuclear-declared states without exception to the process of limiting and reducing their own arsenals is becoming increasingly urgent," Lavrov said yesterday. "Taking into account the principles of equality, parity, and equal and indivisible security fixed in the treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive armaments, it becomes a sort of 'a golden standard' for reaching accords in the military-political dimension of international relations".

The Kremlin's lead diplomat also called for consideration of a draft pact proposed by Russia and China in 2008 to prohibit the fielding of space-based armaments.

An increase in the ability of governments to field orbital armaments and attack space-based assets "will be increasing its destabilizing influence," Lavrov said.

"We assume that [a space-based weapons] treaty should fix the legal commitments on parity basis, without dividing the countries into those that 'can' have weapons in space and those that 'cannot,'" the diplomat said.

"We're hoping for the soonest beginning of substantive work on the Russian-Chinese project," he said. "If we do not get down to it without delay, we may lose time. We are confident that preventing the appearance of weapons in space is extremely necessary for the predictability of the strategic situation on the earth".

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