U.S. Blocks START Extension, Russian Official Says

The United States has frustrated Russian efforts to extend key provisions of a major nuclear weapon treaty, raising prospects that the pact could follow the recent downward path of other strategic arms control agreements, a senior Russian official said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 12, 2007).

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty limits the number of U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear delivery vehicles, but the pact is set to expire next year, taking with it extensive verification tools the two nations use to monitor each other’s nuclear arsenals.

Russian officials have sought to extend the treaty, or at least some of its provisions, but so far without success.

“As of today, the situation is disappointing.  Our colleagues have a different idea of the tasks set,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak in an Interfax interview.

The two nations agreed last year to “formulate a set of elements for a new agreement, that would carry reliability, stability and predictability further into to the strategic sphere,” Kislyak said.  “There are quite a few elements in the agreement that ensure the sides' considerable restraint in the strategic offensive weapons sphere and would be rather valuable in the future. They would be valuable, above all, in ensuring stability and predictability” (Interfax, Feb. 3).

The treaty’s demise would follow difficulties with other agreements, including the 2002 U.S. withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty (see GSN, June 13, 2002), the abandonment of the START II pact (see GSN, June 14, 2002), the Russian suspension of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (see GSN, Dec. 12, 2007), and Russian threats to abandon the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (see GSN, Oct. 12, 2007), Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Feb. 3).

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