30th anniversary of Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Deployment on Seabed, Ocean Floor

Moscow attaches great importance to the Treaty on Prohibition of the Deployment of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Seabed and the Ocean Floor and in the Subsoil Thereof. As has been pointed out by Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in connection with the thirtieth anniversary of the treaty's coming into force, "the importance of this document is growing especially now that the exploration and the use of the seabed and the ocean floor for peaceful purposes are actively developing." The Russian Foreign Ministry says that the signatories to the Treaty have committed themselves not to emplace on the seabed or the ocean floor nuclear weapons or any other types of weapons of mass destruction and also structures, launchers or any other facilities specially meant for storing, testing or using such weapons. In this way, the Treaty has excluded from the sphere of the arms race a vast part of our planet - the seabed, the ocean floor and the subsoil thereof. The Treaty was signed on February 11, 1971 in Moscow, Washington and London by depository countries and came into force on May 18, 1972.