Answer: We are also seriously worried about the situation with proliferation, and not only of nuclear weapons. Documented attempts by terrorists to get possession of combat nuclear technology, the Middle East situation, the exacerbation of relations between India and Pakistan - this all calls for new efforts to restore strategic stability and to strengthen the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons regime.

Russia, for its part, will do all it can as a great nuclear power in this regard. We have ratified all the treaties on real nuclear disarmament, including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. We are now making specific efforts to avoid an international legal vacuum after the USA's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. We hope, among other things, that the discussions of START/ABM problems that have started by order of the two Presidents will lead in the coming months to a new agreement on radical strategic offensive arms reductions and to new understandings in the ABM field.

Besides, we have again suggested that the five official nuclear powers which are permanent members of the UN Security Council should hold expert consultations on nonproliferation issues. As is known, it was precisely in this format that we in the past more than once achieved weighty results in the area of disarmament and nonproliferation.