nuclear-news

USA and Russia in no hurry to reduce nuclear arms

No plans to sign Russia nuclear deal this week: U.S WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Reuters) (Additional reporting by Alister Bull; Editing by Cynthia Osterman– 16 Dec 09 The White House on Tuesday played down chances the United States and Russia would sign an agreement to reduce their nuclear arms stockpiles this week during the Copenhagen climate summit…..……Washington and Moscow failed to reach agreement on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the biggest agreed nuclear weapons cut in history, before December 5, when the pact had been due to expire. Both sides agreed it should remain in force pending agreement on a successor…………….The START-1 treaty, signed by then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, took nearly a decade to achieve. Under the deal, Russia more than halved its nuclear arsenal, the Foreign Ministry has said.

Over the past decade, relations between Moscow and Washington became strained over the Iraq war, NATO’s eastward expansion and last year’s Georgia war, but Obama pledged to improve ties when he became president.

Last July, Obama and Medvedev outlined a framework for the new treaty, restricting deployed strategic warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675 while limiting the number of delivery platforms to between 500 and 1,100.

The United States and Russia would still have enough firepower to destroy the world several times over.

No plans to sign Russia nuclear deal this week: U.S. | Reuters

December 16, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, USA, weapons and war | antinuclear, Copenhagen, nuclear, nuclear weapons