MOSCOW, May 4 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow believes there is a pressing need to hold an international conference on a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East before the end of the current year, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
A meeting of the Preparatory Committee for Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review was held in Geneva from April 22 through May 3, attended by representatives of 106 signatory states and over 60 NGOs.
The meeting expressed its “consensus-based position that all challenges to the nonproliferation regime should be resolved solely on the basis of NPT provisions,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.
One key priority in that context is the holding of a conference on the creation of a zone free from nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, it continued.
“This calls for urgent and focused measures,” the ministry said.
The task of holding such a conference in 2012 was set at the NPT review meeting in 2010.
