US, Russia face tough nuclear talks
ARUSSIA: When Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev meet for
the first time on April 1, a big part of “pressing the reset button”
will be to rescue the two countries’ dying arms control treaty and
prevent a return to Cold War nuclear rivalry. The “reset,” Washington’s
image for redefining future U.S.-Russian relations, covers a tangle of
issues.
Critical among them is the replacement of one of the most important
Cold War deals limiting the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals - the
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. START expires Dec. 5, and at their
London summit, Obama and Medvedev are expected to announce talks on a
new pact, whose outcome will color relations between Washington and
Moscow for years to come.
But with an array of military and political issues to untangle, “the
process will be very difficult,” said Anton Khlopkov, director of the
Moscow-based Center for Energy and Security Studies.
Signed in 1991 by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President
George H.W. Bush, the 700-page START resulted in the largest nuclear
reductions in history.
Essential to that was a mechanism that allowed the two sides to
inspect and verify each other’s arsenals.
“If one thing or another isn’t done, then we’ll end up in a legal
vacuum and we won’t know anything about the condition of (each other’s)
nuclear forces,” said retired Maj. Gen.
Vladimir Dvorkin, a former arms control expert with the Russian
Defense Ministry.
Moscow, Monday, AP
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