Asia-Pacific
Arms control talks between US, Russia to resume mid-January
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-23 05:54
 |
Large Medium Small |
WASHINGTON: Talks between the United States and Russia on a successor treaty to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) will resume in mid-January next year, US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday.
"Our goal remains to conclude a solid treaty for the president' s signature as soon as possible, and we expect that the teams will resume their negotiations in Geneva in mid-January," Crowley said in a regular state department briefing.
The US and Russian teams had been negotiating in Geneva for more than two months to clinch an agreement over the successor treaty to the START, which expired on December 5.
Crowley said the talks involve "complex issues" in terms of " numbers, verification and kinds of systems," but he expressed confidence that the two sides will arrive at a satisfactory conclusion and agree on a new treaty that meets the national interests of both the United States and Russia.
The START, signed in 1991 between the United States and the Soviet Union, obliged both sides to reduce the number of their nuclear warheads to 6,000 and delivery vehicles to 1,600.
The new treaty's outline agreed by US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev at a July summit in Moscow included slashing nuclear arsenals to 1,500 to 1,675 operational warheads and delivery vehicles to 500 to 1,000.
