UN Under-Secretary-General of Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu has stressed it is a positive development that Russia and the United States have returned to regular strategic stability dialogues.
"While, you know, the discussions must be definitely quite difficult, they seem to be very genuinely and sincerely engaged in very substantive discussions. That's very good", she stated.
"The statement by Presidents Biden and Putin of this very famous Reagan-Gorbachev statement - there is no winner in nuclear war, therefore it should never be fought - those things actually provide a better atmosphere for NPT Review Conference also to take place, to produce reasonably good outcome".
The landmark summit in Geneva on 16 June marked the first Putin-Biden meeting, with the two presidents considering it productive. They agreed to launch consultations on strategic stability, and adopted a joint statement reaffirming the commitment to the 1985 formula by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.
President-designate of the 2020 Review Conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Gustavo Zlauvinen, said in a letter in July that the tenth session was rescheduled and will be held in January 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The NPT Review Conference is the main event in the field of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and takes place every five years.