The head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff participated in the most recent round of negotiations with Russia on developing a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 24).
Adm. Michael Mullen conducted talks with Russian officials in Geneva over three days ending yesterday, according to U.S. spokesman in Geneva Michael Parmly.
Mullen and Gen. Nikolai Makarov, head of the Russian General Staff, considered "military and technical issues" connected to the 1991 treaty, which is scheduled to expire on Dec. 5, a U.S. spokesman said.
''Both sides noted that the discussions were both candid and productive and that negotiations were proceeding in a positive direction,'' Capt. John Kirby said in a prepared statement.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed in July that a new arms control deal would limit deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,500 to 1,675, while capping delivery platforms somewhere between 500 and 1,100. Under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, each side can maintain as many as 2,200 warheads on no more than 1,600 launch vehicles.
Talks on the new deal are in the "home stretch" but "they are not over," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said yesterday. The emphasis is on weighty matters and ''the search for mutually acceptable compromises," he added.
Verification of the nuclear reductions under the new pact is a sticking point in the talks, according to U.S. officials (Associated Press/New York Times, Nov. 24).
"The current agreement expires on Dec. 5. The presidents have given their delegations the task of doing everything to ensure a new agreement is ready by then," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday.
Lavrov said the U.S. and Russian presidents would then have to determine a date and location for signing the deal, Agence France-Presse reported.
Lawmakers in both countries would have to sign off on the new pact, meaning it will not go into effect before the existing treaty expires next week. Some sort of stopgap measure would be necessary in the interim, according to a high-level White House source (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Nov. 24).