Moscow: Russian and United States negotiators discussed the expiration of the last remaining nuclear arms pact between the two countries and agreed on the<\/b>
\nMoscow: Russian and United States negotiators discussed the expiration of the last remaining nuclear arms pact between the two countries and agreed on the need to quickly launch new arms-control talks, the Kremlin said on Friday, February 6.
The New START treaty terminated on Thursday, February 5, leaving no caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than half a century and fuelling fears of an unconstrained nuclear arms race.
Russian and US negotiators discussed the issue in the United Arab Emirates, where Russian, Ukrainian and US delegations held two days of talks on a peace settlement in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday.
\u201cThere is an understanding, and they talked about it in Abu Dhabi, that both parties will take responsible positions and both parties realise the need to start talks on the issue as soon as possible,\u201d Peskov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared his readiness to stick to the treaty\u2019s limits for another year if Washington follows suit. US President Donald Trump has ignored the offer and argued he wants China to be a part of a new pact, which Beijing has rebuffed.
\u201cRather than extend NEW START (A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernised Treaty that can last long into the future,\u201d Trump posted Thursday on his Truth Social network.
Asked to comment on a report by Axios claiming Russian and US negotiators discussed a possible informal deal to observe the pact\u2019s limits for at least six months, Peskov responded that any such extension could only be formal.
\u201cObviously its provisions can only be extended in a formal way,\u201d Peskov said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine any informal extension in this sphere.\u201d
Moscow views the treaty\u2019s expiration on Thursday \u201cnegatively\u201d and regrets it, Peskov said. At the same time, he emphasised that \u201cif we receive constructive responses, we will certainly conduct a dialogue.\u201d
Even as New START expired, the US and Russia agreed on Thursday to reestablish high-level, military-to-military dialogue following a meeting between senior officials from both sides in Abu Dhabi, the US military command in Europe said.
The link was suspended in 2021 as relations between Moscow and Washington grew increasingly strained before Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
New START, signed in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, was the last remaining pact in a long series of agreements between Moscow and Washington to limit their nuclear arsenals, starting with SALT I in 1972.
New START restricted each side to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers deployed and ready for use. It was originally set to expire in 2021 but was extended for five years.
The pact envisioned sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance, although they stopped in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.
In February 2023, Putin suspended Moscow\u2019s participation, saying Russia couldn\u2019t allow US inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its NATO allies openly declared a goal of Moscow\u2019s defeat in Ukraine. At the same time, the Kremlin emphasised it wasn\u2019t withdrawing from the pact altogether, pledging to respect its caps on nuclear weapons.
By offering in September to abide by New START\u2019s limits for a year, which would buy time for both sides to negotiate a successor agreement, Putin said the treaty\u2019s expiration would be destabilising and could fuel nuclear proliferation.
Trump has indicated he would like to keep limits on nuclear weapons but wants to involve China in a potential new treaty.
In his first term, Trump tried and failed to push for a three-way nuclear pact involving China. Beijing has balked at any restrictions on its smaller but growing nuclear arsenal, while urging the US to resume nuclear talks with Russia.
Thomas DiNanno, a top US diplomat in charge of arms control, said Friday that the expiration of the last nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States marks the \u201cend of an era\u201d of what he described as \u201cUS unilateral restraint\u201d and insisted that Trump wants a \u201cbetter agreement\u201d that would also involve Beijing.
\u201cAs we sit here today, China\u2019s entire nuclear arsenal has no limits, no transparency, no declarations and no controls,\u201d DiNanno told the Conference on Disarmament, a UN-backed organisation, in Geneva. He added that \u201dthe next era of arms control can and should continue with clear focus, but it will require the participation of more than just Russia at the negotiating table.\u201d
DiNanno, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, also accused Beijing of covertly conducting nuclear tests. \u201cToday, I can reveal that the US government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons,\u201d he said.
DiNanno stated that China\u2019s army \u201csought to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognises these tests violate test ban commitments.\u201d
Ambassador Shen Jian of China accused the United States of \u201cshifting the blame.\u201d
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