U.S. and Russian negotiators are making progress toward an agreement that would replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the top U.S. delegate to the talks said today (see GSN, June 3).
"We have been here in Geneva for the past three days with the U.S. delegation, engaged in productive talks with our Russian counterparts," Undersecretary of State Rose Gottemoeller said of the second round of negotiations on the follow-on to the pact that is scheduled to expire Dec. 5.
She noted the intention to reduce both nations' nuclear stockpiles below the 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed warheads allowed under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, Agence France-Presse reported.
"[U.S. President Barack] Obama and Russian President [Dmitry] Medvedev have instructed that the new agreement achieve reductions lower than those in existing arms control agreements, and that the agreement should include effective verification measures drawn up from our experience in implementing START," Gottemoeller told the Conference on Disarmament.
The sides agreed this week "to hold the next round of talks in the second half of June," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a release. The presidents are set to be briefed on the status of negotiations at their planned meeting next month in Moscow.
A START replacement treaty would serve as one part of a larger international nonproliferation and disarmament campaign, Gottemoeller said in discussing a landmark agenda accepted last week at the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament (see GSN, May 29; Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, June 4).
Among the issues to be considered is a treaty that would prohibit production of fissile material for nuclear-weapon purposes, Reuters reported.
"There should be no misapprehensions or illusions on the difficulty of our task," Gottemoeller said told delegates. "This treaty has been on the international agenda for most of the nuclear age. It is time that we stopped talking about having [a fissile material cutoff treaty] and got to work to complete it."
Although the negotiation of fissile material cutoff treaty would mark a major achievement, the "finish line" would remain worldwide nuclear disarmament, she said.
Gottemoeller also demanded greater deference to international nonproliferation rules and "consequences for those who violate them" (Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters, June 4).