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The Obama administration said yesterday it hopes to reach agreement with Russia on a new strategic arms control treaty "in short order," but suggested there is no pressing need to conclude negotiations ahead of the U.S. Global Nuclear Security Summit next month, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, March 9).
(Mar. 10) -
Russian Foreign Ministry official Anatoly Antonov, shown last year, has led Russian negotiators in talks aimed at replacing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The latest round of negotiations began this week (Alberto Pizzoli/Getty Images).
"If it takes, quite frankly, many more weeks past April to get something that we believe is in our best interest, then we're not looking to rush the negotiations," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, pledged last July to cut their nations' respective strategic arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 deployed nuclear warheads under a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired in December. Negotiators have reportedly also agreed to reduce each state's arsenal of nuclear delivery vehicles -- missiles, submarines and bombers -- to between 700 and 800, down from the 1,100-vehicle limit set by the leaders.
The sides have struggled to resolve various disagreements, including disputes over a U.S. plan to field missile defenses in Europe.
Still, Moscow indicated this week that an agreement could be imminent. "We want everything to be completed in the next two to three weeks. The chances are there," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, March 9).
A 20-page draft of the new treaty was largely completed months ago, the New York Times reported. A longer and yet-unfinished document, expected to be between 100 and 150 pages, would outline the specific terms of the agreement.
The final deal could include a statement establishing an informal link between missile defenses and strategic weapons, according to officials. Washington indicated earlier this year that it would base interceptors in Romania, prompting Moscow to revive an effort to link nuclear arms reductions under the treaty to limitations on the European missile shield (see GSN, Feb. 9; Baker/Landler, New York Times, March 9).
Russian leaders doubt U.S. assertions that the missile shield is only intended to counter a perceived Iranian missile threat, Der Spiegel reported today. Moscow has long expressed fears that the planned defense system could undermine its strategic deterrent.
"This is where the White House's age-old plan to suffocate our strategic armed forces and destroy our own intercontinental missiles, directly after START, is being implemented," the magazine quoted Moscow-based military analysts as saying (Christian Neef, Der Spiegel, March 10).
In addition, friction has persisted between the governments over provisions for sharing flight data from missile tests, according to the Times.
Medvedev referred to remaining points of contention in the talks during a telephone conversation with Obama last month, dashing the U.S. president's hopes that a deal would soon be reached, the Times reported. Obama has dispatched Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher to the latest round of negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, in a bid to help address remaining issues.
“It’s hard for us to learn how to dance together again,” one high-level Obama administration said, speaking to unforeseen difficulties in improving U.S. cooperation with Russia.
"This is a marginal no-brainer, and it takes forever and will be a semi-difficult ratification fight. This is complicated stuff," said George Perkovich, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Moscow hopes Washington will make additional concessions to complete a deal before next month's nuclear summit, while the Obama administration hopes financial concerns could place similar pressure on Moscow, Perkovich said. "It's a contest of who needs it most," he said (Baker/Landler, New York Times).