United States, Russia reach nuclear arms agreement

The pact between the US and Russia to cut the size of their nuclear arsenals must help pave the way for further reductions, British…

The pact between the US and Russia to cut the size of their nuclear arsenals must help pave the way for further reductions, British foreign secretary David Miliband said today.

Earlier today, US president Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev sealed an agreement on a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty.

Mr Miliband said: “The international community must now seize the opportunity this creates for the 2010 NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference and beyond.

“That means continued efforts by all states possessing nuclear weapons to work towards their total elimination".

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“It means concerted action from the international community to tackle countries like North Korea and Iran which seek to develop nuclear weapons in breach of their treaty commitments".

“We will continue to keep the number of warheads under review and make further reductions wherever possible".

Mr Obama and Mr Medvedev will meet on April 8th in Prague to sign the treaty.

"This landmark agreement advances the security of both nations, and reaffirms American and Russian leadership on behalf of nuclear security and global non-proliferation," the White House said in a statement.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said the treaty shows states like Iran and North Korea that non-proliferation is a top priority for Moscow and Washington.

"The treaty also shows the world, particularly states like Iran and North Korea, that one of our top priorities is to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime and keep nuclear materials out of the wrong hands," Ms Clinton said.

After months of deadlock, a deal on a replacement for the Cold War-era Start treaty marked Mr Obama's most concrete foreign policy achievement since taking office and could also boost his effort to "reset" relations with Moscow.

The accord, the first major arms control agreement in a generation between the two former Cold War adversaries, raises hopes for further disarmament initiatives. The pact is expected to cut the number of long-range nuclear weapons held by each side to about 1,500 and sharply slash the number of missiles and other delivery vehicles.

Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre think tank, said the treaty advances the causes of nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament, while standing as a symbol that Mr Obama's effort to mend tattered US relations with Russia is working.

"I think this also means that the environment of US-Russia relations has improved, and I think we will feel the positive impact of that treaty for some time," Mr Trenin said.

But he warned that both sides should move quickly to follow up the treaty with agreements on other thorny issues. Otherwise, he said, the new era of good feeling between Washington and Moscow "may be a short-lived effect."

The signing ceremony will set the stage for a White House campaign to win Senate ratification. The treaty also must win approval by Russian parliament, and the two legislative processes are likely to take months.

Robert S.Norris, an analyst of US and Russian nuclear arsenals, predicted that the White House could find it difficult to win Senate approval. "Hard negotiations with the Russians will now be followed by hard negotiations with Republican senators to achieve ratification," Mr Norris said.

The signing in Prague comes about a year after Mr Obama declared his vision of a nuclear-free world in a speech there.

The new agreement to reduce long-range nuclear weapons would replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired in December.

Both sides said that the new treaty, like the 1991 agreement, should set up a mechanism for verifying compliance with its terms. A 2002 deal, known as the Moscow Treaty, called for accelerated weapons reductions but did not include any mechanism for verifying them.

The Moscow Treaty set limits on both sides' strategic nuclear warheads at between 1,700 and 2,200. The new deal, whose provisions have not been made public, is expected to lower that to about 1,500. It also would reduce the permissible number of strategic launchers - the missiles and bombers that deliver warheads to their targets.

The agreement would still leave each country with a large number of nuclear weapons, both deployed and stockpiled.

The US has another 2,600 warheads held in reserve, plus 500 non-strategic nuclear weapons, by the two experts' estimate. Another 4,200 retired US strategic warheads are awaiting dismantlement.

Agencies