The UK House of Lords’ International Relations Committee has warned in a report that the threat of a nuclear war is now not as distant as it may seem.
Commenting on the document, the Committee’s Chairman Lord Howell of Guildford cautioned that people are currently “dangerously close to a world without arms control agreements” which he claimed “paves the way for a new arms race and for increased risk of nuclear weapons use".
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“Disintegrating relationships between nuclear possessor states, new capabilities and technologies, mixed with a lack of communication and understanding, mean that the risk of nuclear weapons being used is greater now than it has been since the Cold War”, Howell underscored.
He urged the UK government to take MPs’ “serious concerns into consideration”, also calling for “an increase in dialogue and transparency between the nuclear weapon states to show a demonstrable commitment to disarmament”.
The report comes several months after the US and Russia pulled out of a keynote Cold War-era nuclear arms treaty.
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Russia has repeatedly denied these allegations, stressing that a US missile shield deployed in Europe can be repurposed for offensive means and therefore runs counter to the INF. Moscow responded to Trump's move by suspending its own participation in the treaty.