U.N. Director General Ban Ki-moon yesterday praised the pledge by the United States and Russia to seek new nuclear-weapon reductions in a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 7).
U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed Monday to draw down their respective deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 warheads. Under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, the two countries are required to reduce their deployments to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads before 2013.
"This agreement is consistent with the disarmament obligations by the two largest nuclear-weapon states under Article 6 of the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty]," Ban said in a prepared statement, referring to the treaty's call for nuclear-armed states to work toward eventual disarmament.
"The secretary general believes that this agreement will make a significant contribution to the process of nuclear disarmament, as well as nuclear nonproliferation, during the lead-up to the 2010 NPT [review] conference and eventually to achieving the goal of a nuclear weapon-free world," Ban's spokeswoman added in the release (see GSN April 21; Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, July 7).
China also voiced its support for the Russian and U.S. commitment to replace the treaty, which expires in December, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
"China welcomes the Russia-U.S. document on reducing strategic arms and hopes both nations will reach an early deal and aggressively cut nuclear arms," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.
"As the world's biggest nuclear arms countries, Russia and the United States should cut their nuclear arsenals in a verifiable and irreversible manner, which will pave the way for the comprehensive and thorough nuclear disarmament," he added (Xinhua News Agency, July 7).
Russia said it wants a START replacement pact to address strategic delivery systems carrying conventional armaments, Interfax reported yesterday.
Moscow could not distinguish whether an incoming missile was carrying a nuclear or conventional warhead, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a television interview aired yesterday.
"Following fairly difficult negotiations, we managed to make sure that the new treaty will reflect the fact that strategic non-nuclear weapons, on which the United States is actively working now, affect strategic stability," he added (see GSN, July 1).
"We will seek to have this subject reflected more clearly, so that it is mentioned not only in the context of the influence that non-nuclear strategic weapons have on strategic stability, but also in terms of actually being considered a new class of strategic weapons," Lavrov said (Interfax I, July 7).
Obama offered no solid statements on a proposed European missile shield during discussions yesterday with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a Russian official said. Moscow has long opposed the Bush administration plan to field missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.
"Concerning missile defense, no clear-cut promises were given on the American side. Obama said that while considering (this problem), Russia's concerns will be taken into account more," said Kremlin official Yury Ushakov.
"The [Bush] administration would only nod in agreement and promise to think [Russia's] proposals over, instead of reacting adequately and constructively," he said, adding that Putin and Obama bad discussed the proposed missile shield "several times" (Interfax II, July 7).