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After Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to extend the current agreement to “New START” without preconditions for at least a year, US National Security Council adviser Robert O’Brien responded by saying that this “does not constitute a basis for agreement “.
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National Security Council Advisor Robert O’Brien with US President Donald Trump
US National Security Council adviser Robert O’Brien said the United States proposed extending the new START agreement to limit strategic weapons for one more year, in exchange for Russia and the United States jointly stopping production of all nuclear warheads during that period.
O’Brien considered in a statement that this proposal is a “victory for both parties, and we believe that the Russian side was ready to accept it when I met with my Russian counterpart in Geneva.”
He believed that “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to extend the work of the agreement without freezing the production of nuclear warheads does not constitute a basis for the agreement.”
The statement added that the United States “is serious about limiting the proliferation of weapons to protect the security of the entire world,” in the hope that Russia will reconsider its position “before falling into a costly arms race.”
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that Moscow and Washington unconditionally extend the “New START” treaty, the last basic agreement between the two countries to limit nuclear weapons, for one year in an offer rejected by the White House.
The new START agreement was signed in April 2010, but entered into force in February 2011. The term of the agreement is ten years, renewable.
A Kremlin statement quoted Putin as saying during the Security Council meeting: “I have a proposal, which is to extend the current agreement without preconditions for at least one year, so that we can conduct real negotiations.”
Putin asked Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “to formulate our position to try to get at least a somewhat consistent response (from the United States) in the near future.
Tensions rose for months over the fate of the treaty that limits the number of nuclear warheads that Washington and Moscow can possess, and whose deadline expires on February 5, 2021.
The United States had reported earlier this week that it had reached an initial agreement with Russia to extend the treaty, but Moscow was quick to reject the United States’ terms.
Putin said on Friday it would be “extremely regrettable” if the treaty, which managed to contain an arms race, expires without being replaced by a similar one.
The agreement was signed in 2010 at the height of hopes of relaunching relations between Moscow and Washington, in a process led by then-US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart at the time, Dmitry Medvedev.
Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow prefers to extend the existing treaty for a further five years without conditions, but is nevertheless ready to reach a new agreement with the Americans.
He said Moscow had presented Washington with some “concrete proposals.” He said the United States responded with a series of proposals, which were described as preconditions for the extension of “New Start.”
These “numerous” proposals are outside the framework of the agreement and “outside of our responsibility,” Lavrov said, without elaborating.
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