18 March 2010
U.S.-Russian Arms Reduction Deal Expected “Soon”
Washington — U.S. and Russian negotiators in Geneva are reporting “substantial progress” on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that would reduce the number of nuclear warheads deployed in both countries by about one-quarter, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says, predicting a final agreement will be reached “soon.”
Speaking with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow March 18, Clinton said pending a final agreement, the United States and Russia are beginning discussions on where and when it will be signed by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” the secretary said. “First, our negotiators have to sign on the dotted line, so to speak, that they have completed the negotiations. And we’re looking forward to getting that word soon, and then we will move on to setting a time and a place for this very important event.”
Lavrov told reporters, “We have every reason to believe we are now at the finish line.”
The START pact would replace a previous version that expired at the end of 2009. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said March 18 that the Obama administration wants to see a deal “that moves forward the president’s goal of nuclear security and reducing the amount of nuclear weapons in our world,” while also advancing U.S. national security interests.
“I think it is safe to say that the president has been more personally involved with these negotiations than you’ve probably seen in 20 or 25 years,” Gibbs said. The president has spent “an awful lot of his own time working directly with Mr. Medvedev to ensure that we make the progress that we need.”
Clinton and Lavrov also discussed the nuclear security summit that will be held in Washington April 12–13.
“It especially is important for the United States and Russia, who bear the responsibility, to continue the way forward on nonproliferation and to work as partners in the global effort to secure fissile materials and counter the threat of nuclear terrorism,” Clinton said, citing the summit as a further example of U.S.-Russian cooperation.
However, the secretary described Russian plans to start the reactor it is building for Iran’s nuclear power plant later in 2010 as “premature,” and urged Russia and others in the international community instead to send “an unequivocal message” to Iran expressing collective concern over its nuclear activities.
While Iran has the right to peaceful and civil nuclear power, “Iran is not living up to its international obligations,” she said, and needs to hear a clear message that “its pursuit of nuclear weapons poses a direct threat both to regional and global security.”
The State Department’s acting deputy spokesman, Gordon Duguid, said March 18 that any civil nuclear facility in Iran must be under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “That is no different from any other nuclear power plant in countries that subscribe to the internationally accepted international regime,” he said.
However, Iran is in violation of its IAEA agreement, he continued. “We do not think that moving forward on a business-as-usual basis with Iran is something that we should be doing,” Duguid said, and the United States plans further discussions with Russia on the Bushehr reactor.
