US trilateral negotiations subvert intl consensus on disarmament: envoy

VIENNA -- The so-called trilateral arms control negotiations raised by the United States subvert the international consensus on nuclear disarmament, a Chinese envoy said here Friday.

Wang Qun, Chinese envoy to the United Nations (UN) and other international Organizations in Vienna, made his remarks after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Beijing to take part in the so-called trilateral talks during his visit to Vienna on Friday.

"The international community has a clear consensus on how to carry out global nuclear disarmament, and a series of international legal instruments have been formed on this basis," said Wang.

He pointed out that these instruments clearly stipulate that the United States and Russia, with the largest nuclear arsenals in the world, bear a special responsibility for disarmament, and should continue to drastically reduce their nuclear weapons in a verifiable, irreversible and legally-binding manner.

When conditions are ripe, other nuclear-weapon states will join the multilateral disarmament negotiation process, said Wang, noting that the maintenance of global peace and stability in the over 70 years after World War II cannot be separated from the above-mentioned consensus and non-proliferation system.

He emphasized that China never evades its international obligations for nuclear disarmament, and has always been a participant, supporter and defender of the existing international non-proliferation mechanisms and the post-war international system.

"We will never be absent from what we should do," said Wang. "But we will only participate in relevant processes on the basis of abiding by the internationally recognized consensus on nuclear disarmament."

Wang dismissed Pompeo's insistence on dragging China into the trilateral negotiations as "wishful thinking," urging Washington to hold serious talks with Russia and stop looking for excuses for withdrawing from international treaties and organizations.