Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said on Monday that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will ask Russia and other nuclear powers at the ministerial meetings to join the Treaty of Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.
"We are not talking about Russia's accession to the treaty, but about a protocol to it, which invites nuclear powers to sign this protocol, thereby providing assurances to the parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia ... We are ready to put a signature together with other countries, permanent members of the [UN] Security Council, with one reservation ... on the condition that all parties to the treaty comply with its requirements: not to possess, develop or host any nuclear weapons elements," Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers meeting in Indonesia's Jakarta.
Japan May Host US Nukes
Japan is sending signals that it does not mind deploying the US's nuclear weapons, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday that the security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific region is "inseparable," adding that Japan and NATO, which "share core values and strategic interests," are deepening their ties.
"NATO is pursuing the thesis that security in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific region, as they call it, is indivisible. It is planned to move parts of NATO's military infrastructure to this region ... Japan and [South] Korea, by the way, are already signaling that they would not mind hosting American nuclear weapons or having their own. This is a very serious and dangerous trend," Lavrov stressed.