MOSCOW. May 26 (Interfax-AVN) - In order to ensure efficient nuclear containment, Russia and the U.S. should set up a common body responsible for the two countries' participation in the Global Partnership Program, Major General Vladimir Dvorkin, research director of the Strategic Nuclear Forces Problems Center under the Russian Academy of Sciences, said on Wednesday.
"About 10 Russian ministries and agencies, ranging from the Defense Ministry's 12th directorate to the Federal Space Agency, are responsible for the Global Partnership Program, i.e. for the country's nuclear safety, and it is common knowledge that too many cooks spoil the broth. That is why both we and Americans need a single body in the sphere of nuclear weapons control," Dvorkin told Interfax-Military News Agency, commenting on the report of U.S. Professor Matthew Bunn on nuclear terrorism.
Such a body could coordinate the activity of the two countries' ministries and agencies in the sphere of nuclear weapons control and draft documents and presidential decrees in this field, if necessary, Dvorkin said.
"Apart from the federal law "On Security", which was passed in 1992 and does not meet many of the present-day requirements, we have no documents in this extremely important field, and the center for Russian-U.S. data exchange, which was created a few years ago and on which both parties pinned high hopes, is effectively not working," he noted.
Dvorkin stressed that the balance of nuclear forces is gradually shifting, and "not in Russia's favor, unfortunately."
"As to the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, which came into force in 2003, it is not working either due to the lack of a reliable implementation mechanism," he said.