MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/. The world’s nuclear security is hanging by a thread, but it can be propped up if Moscow and Washington rebuild mutual trust and engage in talks, according to American economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.
"The nuclear framework is hanging by a thread right now. It needs to be brought back to life. That requires negotiations and trust between the US and Russia," he said in an interview with TASS.
According to the economist, the US broke apart the nuclear framework, starting with the country’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002.
"And then the United States abandoned the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty in 2019. And the war in Ukraine, obviously, has basically driven the New START agreement to its expiration date," he said.
Sachs said Russia and the US should make a new nuclear non-proliferation deal.
"And that is going to have to be built on peace in Ukraine," he said.
"I think what Trump is trying to do, not as consistently as I would like, but too fitfully with all of these twists and turns, is to make a fundamental rapprochement with Russia so that not only the war in Ukraine ends, but that the United States and Russia can cooperate on nuclear disarmament and on other crucial issues," Sachs continued.