From the State Department Daily Briefing, June 3, 2009
QUESTION: Yes, may I ask you about START negotiations with Russia? Yesterday —
MR. CROWLEY: You may ask. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: Yesterday, Russian president’s spokeswoman said that the agreement on START is achievable by – at least the framework agreement is achievable by the time President Obama is coming to Moscow. Do you have any comments on that? Will you agree with this statement?
MR. CROWLEY: Let’s see, today is June 3rd. I believe we’ve had a delegations meeting this week in Geneva. I have not received a readout of their discussions. But obviously, our interest here is to see what can be teed up for the presidents when they get together in the next few weeks. Obviously, we are very definitely focused on the renewal of the – or the updating of the START agreement, and we will hope to have something accomplished this year. The presidents, when they meet next month, will have the opportunity to push that process along. But I don’t have a particular readout of where we stand at this point.