Nuclear powers should not forget about their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regarding movement towards a world without weapons, former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev said on Saturday in an interview with Japan’s Kyodo News.

Axar.az reports citing TASS.

"We must not forget that the movement towards a world without nuclear weapons is the most important obligation of the nuclear powers enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty," Gorbachev stressed. He also expressed confidence that the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF treaty,) the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (the New START,) and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) "all are parts of a single architecture that can collapse if one of its elements is undermined." "I still hope that the leaders of our countries have enough wisdom to prevent this," Gorbachev noted.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who, according to Kyodo News, is currently receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness, also said that he would like to visit Japan in the future.