Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has urged Moscow and Washington to resume talks across the political agenda, particularly on the nuclear issue, the RIA Novosti news agency reported Monday.
Speaking in Reykjavik to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1986 Soviet-American summit, Gorbachev said that the world was about to cross “a dangerous line.”
“We need
to resume dialogue. Terminating
talks was our
biggest mistake," he told
RIA Novosti.
“There has been a
collapse of mutual trust [between Russia and
the United States.] I believe
that we need to resume talks across
the agenda, and
on the nuclear issue above all,” he
said.
“As
long as nuclear weapons exist, there is a risk that
they could be used — by accident, via
a technical failure, or though
evil will of man, madmen
or terrorists,” Gorbachev said.
“A nuclear-free world is not a utopia, but an imperative. Yet it can be achieved only through the demilitarization of international relations.”
The Kremlin announced on Oct. 3 that it had decided to suspend a nuclear disarmament treaty with Washington, claiming that the United States’ “unfriendly actions” posed a “strategic threat to stability.”
The protocol, which only came into force in 2010, stipulates that each side must dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium each year.
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