Berlin, Oct 9, IRNA — NATO has rejected German demands for the removal of American nuclear weapons on its soil, the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel said in a report on Saturday.
According to the paper, a secret draft document on NATO’s new strategic concept did not even mention the US tactical atomic weapons deployed in Germany.
Instead, the document stresses any additional disarmament steps of the western military alliance should ‘take into account the disparity of the larger Russian arsenal of nuclear short-range rockets.’
NATO’s rejection of unilateral German disarmament efforts followed earlier statements
by German Deputy Foreign Minister Werner Hoyer who said the US tactical atomic weapons made ‘militarily no sense.’
Berlin has been pressing for the removal of an estimated 20 American atomic bombs at an air base in the southwestern town of Buechel which are part of a stockpile of about 200 nuclear weapons left in Europe after the end of the Cold War.
American nuclear bombs in Europe are scattered across 62 aircraft shelters at six military bases in five European countries, according to US nuclear experts