[ad_1]
The world – the Americas
US national security adviser Robert O’Brien said in a statement released Friday, hours after the Russian president’s announcement: “Putin’s response today regarding extending the New START treaty without freezing nuclear warheads it’s an idea that is doomed from the start. “
O’Brien added: “The United States takes the issue of arms control very seriously to ensure security around the world. We hope that Russia will review its position before the start of a costly arms race.”
Earlier Friday, the Russian president presented an initiative to extend the “New START” treaty to limit offensive strategic weapons with the United States for one year unconditionally.
Putin told a National Security Council meeting that collapsing the treaty, which expires on February 4, without replacing it with another similar agreement, would be “very regrettable.”
He pointed out that the treaty concluded in 2011 has played its main role in curbing the arms race and ensuring arms control in recent years.
The third version of the Offensive Strategic Reduction Treaty, which was concluded between Russia and the United States in 2010, as an extension of the agreement signed in 1991 in Moscow, is the only working agreement between the two parties on arms reduction, due to the Washington’s withdrawal, on August 2, 2019, from the Intermediate Missile Disarmament Treaty. And in the short term.
While Russia has repeatedly affirmed its willingness to extend the Strategic Offensive Limitation Treaty with the United States, the administration of US President Donald Trump has not expressed a desire to do so, while calling for negotiations on a broader tripartite agreement on nuclear weapons that includes China.
Russia and the United States have so far held two rounds of negotiations on the treaty issue, which were held in the Austrian capital Vienna on June 22 and August 18, and have yet to yield concrete results.
