The US and Russia yesterday began the first round of talks aimed at replacing a landmark Cold War-era nuclear disarmament treaty that expires in December. The talks on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) are a central part of US President Barack Obama’s desire to “reset” strained ties with Russia and their result could have far-reaching implications for global security.
They hark back to Cold War days where US and Soviet officials met for tense negotiations on reducing their vast atomic arsenals and lowering the chances of nuclear Armageddon. A successful result would boost Obama’s vision of a world free of atomic weapons and help set the stage for a fence-mending summit in July when Obama travels to Moscow to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. For Russia, the talks are also a matter of prestige as they imply strategic “parity” with the US, a matter diplomats say is of huge importance to Moscow as it seeks to play a larger role on the world stage.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed a “new momentum for disarmament” and offered his best wishes for the talks. “Let me extend my best wishes for the negotiations between the two countries taking place in Moscow,” the UN chief told a disarmament conference in Geneva.
A source in the Russian foreign ministry said that the talks began yesterday as planned, without giving further details. Interfax news agency said the two sides had decided to refrain from public comment on the talks.
The two-day negotiating session marks the formal start of the process though the two sides have a series of preliminary meetings to help break the ice. Ahead of the talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he hoped they would be “fruitful” but also cautioned that they would be linked to controversial US missile defense plans in Eastern Europe.
“We believe that the START treaty cannot be discussed in a vacuum,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax late on Monday.
“It must reflect the issue of global security, which certainly includes Russia’s, and this implies that we must sort out the situation on missile defense,” Lavrov added.
Moscow has reacted angrily to US plans to place missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Washington however says the plans do not threaten Russia and has tried to keep them off the negotiating table at the START talks. The Russian daily newspaper Vremya Novostei wrote yesterday that it would be “practically impossible” to reach a deal on START unless Obama reconsidered the missile shield that was strongly backed by former US president George W. Bush.
Even aside from the missile defense issue, negotiators face a tough task as they seek to find a successor agreement to START, a hugely complex treaty with numerous arcane technical details, before it expires on Dec. 5.
Talks on a START replacement made little progress under Bush, and despite the warming in ties under Obama, many of the same stumbling blocks remain. For instance, Moscow wants a broad treaty that limits both nuclear warheads and their carriers, such as missiles and bombers, while Washington prefers to focus only on “operationally deployed” warheads that are ready for launch.
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