Russia urges ban on weapons in space

MOSCOW, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Russian officials say a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the United States must include a ban on militarization of space.

The new pact should build on the principles of the first START agreement, and ban space weapons and the deployment of nuclear weapons on land, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov told the 45th Munich Security Conference Friday. The current START pact expires Dec. 5.

Russia also supports the United Nations playing a larger security role in the world to encourage international stability and the reduction of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, Ivanov said.

The final implementation of the current START pact in 2001 resulted in the removal of nearly 80 percent of all strategic nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia. The former Soviet republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine disarmed all of their nuclear weapons under the treaty.