Russia Has Right To Deploy Nuclear Weapons İn Crimea: Fm

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia has the authority to deploy nuclear weapons in the Crimean peninsula.



"Now the Crimea has become part of a state which owns such weapons, according to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," the foreign minister said in response to a question from the Russian news agency Interfax.  



"And the Russian state has, in accordance with international law, every right to dispose of its legitimate nuclear arsenal according to its own interests," he added.  



Lavrov further claimed that the Crimea has never been designated as a "nuclear free zone."  



"It was part of Ukraine, which is a state without such weapons," he said.



Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in March, after a controversial referendum.



Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation has continued to maintain a naval base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, which is currently home to Russia's Black Sea fleet.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Ankara