Secretary Clinton with Foreign Minister Lavrov in Moscow

19 March 2010

Signing of New Nuclear Arms Treaty Near

By Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer

Washington – The United States and Russia are close to agreement on a new treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals, though technical issues remain to be resolved, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said March 19 in Moscow.

During a two-day visit to Moscow, Clinton met with President Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on a range of shared issues. The arms treaty is a significant part of an initiative launched by the Obama administration to improve relations with Russia.

“Since our first meeting in Geneva, a little more than a year ago, Minister Lavrov and I, along with our respective governments under the leadership of both President Medvedev and President Obama, have worked toward a new beginning in the relationship between the United States and Russia,” Clinton said at a Moscow press conference with Lavrov. “We believe that this reset of the relationship has led to much greater cooperation, coordination, and a constructive ongoing consultation on numerous issues that are important to our bilateral relationship and to the global issues that we both are facing.”

The treaty talks began early in 2009 to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I, that expired in December 2009. Making the world nuclear-weapons-free has become a signature foreign policy initiative outlined by Obama in an April 5, 2009, speech in Prague. It became a significant reason for his selection for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

In addition to seeking a world free of nuclear weapons, Obama pledged to work for greater arms control and nonproliferation goals. The arms talks come at a time when Washington is enlisting Moscow’s support in curbing the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran.

While the arms reduction talks have extended well past the December 2009 target set for reaching an agreement, U.S. and Russian negotiators have kept the talks on track and are focused on key verification provisions, which are essential components of any arms control accord.

“We are very encouraged by progress on a new START agreement. Our negotiating teams have reported that they have resolved all of the major issues and there are some technical issues that remain, but we are on the brink of seeing a new agreement between the United States and Russia,” Clinton said. “We hope and expect that there will be a signing in the near future.”

“We also discussed a range of other issues from Iran to Afghanistan and so much more as part of our ongoing consultation,” Clinton added.

Obama and Medvedev talked by telephone March 13 on the status of the START talks, the White House said recently. “Both leaders are committed to concluding an agreement soon,” said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the president’s National Security Council.

Medvedev will be in Washington for the April 12–13 Global Nuclear Security Summit.

The United States and Russia agreed to maintain the provisions of START I until a new agreement is reached, saying that strategic stability is important.

Clinton said recently that the arms reduction treaty is “a technically very complex treaty to accomplish. We share an interest in making real reductions in our strategic arsenals, and that is the most important point. To do that in a way that is verifiable, but which is less costly and less operationally complex than the previous START agreement, is the key challenge, and we are working through it together.”

While in Moscow, Clinton also attended meetings of the Quartet for Middle East Peace that is hoping to re-start Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiations. The Quartet includes Russia and the United States and also the United Nations and the European Union.

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