In the shadow of the Ukraine war and the extraordinary media attention, the conflict over North Korea's nuclear ambitions is currently receding into the background. For years, the government in Pyongyang has been continuously advancing its program. After numerous missile tests earlier this year, according to the English-language state news agency KCNA, the Supreme People's Assembly passed a law on September 8, "On Policy of the Nuclear Force of DPRK".

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (1931–2022) was revered abroad for having ended the Cold War without a shot fired as Warsaw Pact countries regained independence, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and Germany was reunified in 1989–90. Soviet forces left Afghanistan. He reversed the arms race and dismantled tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.

It is not only the war in Ukraine that is deadlocked. There is hardly any movement on the political-diplomatic front either. At the same time, however, some cornerstones for negotiations can be identified. The public debate should pay more attention to it.

Russia’s repeated references to nuclear weapons since it started the war in Ukraine have put nuclear weapons back at centre stage of the strategic discussions. This has raised anxieties about a possible nuclear war in Europe and it is a set-back for nuclear arms control. Unfortunately, the Russian mind set has had a fall-out effect: NATO re-emphasises the need for nuclear deterrence, particularly its nuclear sharing programmes in Europe.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s fair to say, has already profoundly shaped the global discourse on nuclear weapons. In the deliberations at the inaugural meeting of the states parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Vienna last month, the Ukraine war cast a long shadow over the utility and limits of nuclear weapons as a deterrent and as a tool of coercive diplomacy

Seikyo Shimbun has generously allowed republication of their interview with Ambassador Alexander Kmentt, President of the First Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW which was held in Vienna from 21-23 June 2022. Ambassador Kmentt gave this interview to Seikyo Shimbun on 24 June 2022 and it was first published on 6 July 2022.