Washington announces its readiness to sign agreements with Russia on disarmament before the expiry of “START”
The administration of US President Joe Biden confirmed that it is ready to establish new agreements with Russia in the field of disarmament before the expiration of the START 3 Treaty.
A senior official in Biden’s team said, on board his plane during its arrival in Geneva, which will host tomorrow, Wednesday, his first summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “We follow flexible positions regarding the terms and frameworks of agreements.
This could be something broader or agreements that include different elements in different periods.
That is why there is no necessary condition of waiting for the expiration of New START to do anything”.
The official, who was not named, explained that this treaty expires in 2026, noting: “The biggest question that the two presidents are trying to answer in these talks is what will happen next, what will come after the New START treaty”.
He pointed out that the current US President, unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, does not insist on the necessity of holding three-way talks on this issue with the participation of China.
“Ultimately we will need to have a constant conversation with China on issues related to arms control, but the president made it clear from the start that bilateral talks between the world’s two largest nuclear powers are a way to start,” he said.
The third version of the Treaty on the Reduction of Strategic Offensive Arms “New START”, which was concluded between Russia and the United States in 2010, an extension of the agreement signed in 1991 in Moscow, is the only working deal between the two parties on arms reduction, after Washington’s withdrawal, on August 2, 2019, from Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range Missiles.
The New START treaty, which was extended for five years in early February 2021, has kept the two countries’ arsenals at a much lower level than during the Cold War, setting the number of strategic nuclear launchers installed at 700 and the number of nuclear warheads at 1,550.
