LONDON: NATO is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons, taking them out of storage and placing them on standby, in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China, the head of the alliance said on Monday.

Jens Stoltenberg told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that there were live consultations between members to use transparency around its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent.

“I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclearwarheads should be operational and which should be stored, butwe need to consult on these issues. That’s exactly what we’redoing,” he told the paper.

“Transparency helps to communicate the direct message thatwe, of course, are a nuclear alliance.”

Vladimir Putin warns the West a Russia-NATO conflict is just one step from World War Three

“NATO’s aim is, of course, a world without nuclear weapons,but as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will remain a nuclearalliance, because a world where Russia, China and North Koreahave nuclear weapons, and NATO does not, is a more dangerousworld.”

Stoltenberg said last week that nuclear weapons were NATO’s“ultimate security guarantee” and a means to preserve peace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that Moscow could use nuclear weapons to defend itself in extremecircumstances.

It accuses the U.S. and its European allies of pushing the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation by giving Ukraine billions of dollars worth of weapons, some of which are being used against Russian territory.

NATO, which has taken on a greater role in coordinating armssupplies to Kyiv, rarely talks about weapons publicly, althoughit is known that the U.S. has deployed nuclear bombs to severallocations in Europe.