Russia said Friday that more nuclear-armed nations should join a nuclear arms reduction process that to date has only included Moscow and Washington, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 15).
U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed in July to cut their nations' respective deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 warheads under a successor the the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. That is down from the 2,200-warhead limit the states are required to meet by 2012. The leaders also agreed to restrict strategic delivery vehicles on each side to between 500 and 1,100.
"The involvement of more nuclear powers to this process is a necessity that will become pressing in the near future," Russian Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov told RIA Novosti.
If Russia and the United States "reach an agreement on the level of reductions that we are proposing, the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States will be comparable to those of other official nuclear powers," he said (Agence France-Presse I, Oct. 16).
The sides today began their latest meeting aimed at hammering out the specifics of the new agreement.
Today's meeting is taking place at the U.S. mission in Geneva, Switzerland, one Russian diplomat said, adding that the negotiation session would last two weeks (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Oct. 19).
"We are doing everything necessary to achieve the signing of a relevant document by December," when the current treaty is set to expire, Medvedev said, according to RIA Novosti (RIA Novosti, Oct. 19).
Moscow would only be willing to downgrade the alert status of its nuclear arsenal as part of a deal that also addressed conventional armaments, former Russian nuclear missile chief Viktor Yesin told Interfax on Friday.
"Measures aimed at reducing (the level of) nuclear combat readiness and at promoting nuclear disarmament as a whole could be taken only in parallel with a general disarmament process, including conventional forces, as well as through strengthening strategic stability on the basis of common security guarantees," Yesin said.
"Russia, which does not have the sufficient potential of conventional forces comparable to NATO's arsenals, will never agree to nuclear disarmament until general disarmament is approved," he said. "Steps toward lowering the combat readiness of missile systems and in the area of nuclear disarmament in general are possible only in parallel with efforts aimed at maintaining international stability and at promoting general disarmament" (Interfax, Oct. 16).