Global Security Newswire

The United States and Russia could choose Prague as the site for a springtime signing of a landmark nuclear arms control agreement that would replace the now-expired 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a Kremlin official suggested yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 3).

"In expert circles close to the U.S. side, Prague is being named as the venue for the signing. This choice is not being turned down in Moscow," Russian media quoted the source as saying.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last summer pledged to cut their nations' respective strategic arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 deployed nuclear warheads under the new treaty. Negotiators have reportedly agreed to reduce each state's arsenal of nuclear delivery vehicles -- missiles, submarines and bombers -- to between 700 and 800 under the pact, down from the 1,100-vehicle limit set by the leaders in July.

A top Kremlin foreign policy adviser said the deal was likely to be signed by the end of April.

"March-April is a realistic time frame," said Sergei Prikhodko, an aide to Medvedev. "On the whole, the text has been agreed upon though some minor discrepancies remain," he said (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Feb. 2).

“Most likely, the signing will take in the first half of this year,” Russia Today quoted Prikhodko as saying (Russia Today, Feb. 3).

"As our leadership has indicated the treaty is actually 95 percent ready, we expect that certain outstanding items may be cleared within several weeks," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov added in an interview, according to Interfax (Interfax I, Feb. 3).

"This is not a political question, it is a technical question. We are fine tuning and polishing details," Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Russian Federation Council's international affairs committee, told the Associated Press. Margelov, a high-level Russian lawmaker with Kremlin ties, predicted the deal would be signed "by the end of the first quarter" (Angela Charlton, Associated Press/Washington Post, Feb. 3).

The White House yesterday refused to confirm a Wall Street Journal report that the sides had reached an "agreement in principle" on the new treaty, AFP reported.

"As the president said in his State of the Union address, the United States and Russia are completing negotiations on an agreement," said National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer. "We continue to make progress, but will not make any predictions about when we will be finished with the remaining negotiations," he said (see GSN, Jan. 28; Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Feb. 3).

Despite the pending agreement, the Obama administration is not racing to dismantle the U.S. nuclear arsenal, a top Washington arms control official added.

"Nuclear disarmament is not the Holy Grail. As long as we see the rise of nuclear weapons in other countries we will maintain a deterrence that is second to none," Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher said (Charlton, AP).

Completion of the deal would enable Moscow and Washington to advance efforts to curb nonstrategic nuclear-weapon deployments, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen said yesterday, according to ITAR-Tass (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2009; ITAR-Tass, Feb. 4). Russia possesses tactical nuclear weapons numbering in the thousands, while the United States is believed to keep no fewer than 100 of the weapons in several European nations.

Russia also indicated willingness yesterday to begin discussions of tactical nuclear armaments, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

"We've been unable to get through to our partners in this issue in order to at least start talking," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"Our position is well known. I repeat: we're open for direct dialogue over any issue, not through the mass media," he said, referring to this week's New York Times commentary by the foreign ministers of Sweden and Poland on tactical nuclear-weapon deployments (Xinhua News Agency/People's Daily, Feb. 4).

"For many years, we have been urging the first step in this area," Lavrov added, according to Interfax.

"All tactical nuclear arms must be returned to the territory of states that own them," he said. "We have not been able to persuade out partners to at least start discussing this issue" (Interfax II, Feb. 3).

Russian analysts discouraged Moscow from considering a rapid withdrawal of nonstrategic nuclear weapons from its western border.

"Russia can withdraw tactical nuclear weapons from its western regions only after NATO countries having common borders with us commit themselves not to deploy nuclear weapons in their territories," said Russian Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, head of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems.

Another analyst said the United States should unilaterally pull its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe before Russia considers a similar withdrawal (Interfax III, Feb. 3).