Moscow Urges US To Prove Russia's Alleged Nuclear Test Treaty Violations - Envoy

Moscow urges the United States to provide evidence substantiating its claims that Russia violated the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), Russia's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said on Friday

VIENNA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th June, 2019) Moscow urges the United States to provide evidence substantiating its claims that Russia violated the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), Russia's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said on Friday.

On Thursday, the US Defense Intelligence Agency released a statement claiming that the US government, including the intelligence community, had "assessed that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons tests that have created nuclear yield." No information proving the allegations was provided.

"US Government yesterday assessed that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons tests. This allegation was earlier disregarded by #CTBTO Prepcom on the basis of data of Intl.

monitoring system. Interesting: 2 weeks ago US said "probably". Now it's affirmative. Did #US get new evidence?" Ulyanov said on Twitter, adding that Moscow was eager to see this evidence.

Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley suggested in May that Russia was "probably not adhering to" the nuclear testing moratorium outlined in the CTBT.

The CTBT, under which signatories pledge to halt nuclear weapons tests, was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996. It is set to enter into force only after all states in Annex 2 sign and ratify it, but only 37 of 44 countries in question have ratified it so far. As of now, the treaty needs to be signed by India, North Korea and Pakistan, and ratified by China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States.