Summary Lithuania Thursday said any unilateral move by US to cut nuclear arsenals would be irresponsible.
VILNIUS (AFP) - NATO member Lithuania on Thursday said any unilateral moves by the United States to reduce nuclear arsenals would be "irresponsible" if the Baltic state s Soviet-era master Russia did not follow suit.
"Unilateral disarmament would be irresponsible. It would be a very careless thing to do, especially taking into account Russia s reaction to such proposals," Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite told AFP in Vilnius.
US President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for both Washington and Moscow to reduce strategic nuclear arms stockpiles by up to a third, at Berlin s Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of a Europe divided under the Cold War.
Russian officials reacted coldly to the proposal, saying the United States should first address Moscow s concerns over NATO plans for European missile defence.
Obama had also pledged Wednesday that he would work with NATO allies "to seek bold reductions in US and Russian tactical weapons in Europe".
The ex-communist Eastern European states that are now part of the NATO Western defence alliance have long expressed alarm over alleged short-range tactical nuclear weapons stockpiles in Russia s Kaliningrad exclave, which is sandwiched between EU members Lithuania and Poland.
Grybauskaite insisted Thursday that any nuclear weapons negotiations with Russia must not affect NATO s missile defence plans.
"Even if such disarmament took place and negotiations started between the US and Russia, then Lithuania s position would be very clear that this disarmament cannot take place at the expense of other strategic projects, including the missile defence in Europe," she told AFP.
The Baltic state of three million people, which broke from the Soviet Union in 1990 and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004, has long voiced concern that bilateral US-Russia arms talks could impact regional security in Eastern Europe.
In 2010, after the previous cut was agreed to as part of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, Grybauskaite said US and Russian disarmament talks "could violate the interests of Eastern Europe and Baltic states".
