Global Security Newswire

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expired Saturday without a formal successor or binding interim agreement in place, the Washington Times reported (see GSN, Dec. 4; Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, Dec. 5).

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed in July to cut their nations' respective deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 warheads under a replacement pact, down from the 2,200-weapon limit the states are required to meet by 2012 under the 2002 Moscow Treaty. The leaders also pledged to restrict strategic delivery vehicles on each side to between 500 and 1,100.

In a telephone call Friday, Obama and Medvedev addressed ongoing efforts by diplomats from Moscow and Washington to finalize the new agreement, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

"Both leaders expressed satisfaction with the Russian and U.S. negotiating teams' active work, which resulted in the approval of two joint statements on the expiry of the 1991 START treaty," the Kremlin said in a statement. "The two presidents agreed to give new impetus to the negotiations in Geneva in order to complete as soon as possible preparation of a new START treaty" (Xinhua News Agency/China View, Dec. 4).

The two nations had already pledged to "to continue to work together in the spirit of the START treaty following its expiration."

The powers "continue to make progress" toward finalizing the new pact, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Failure to produce a new treaty ahead of the 1991 pact's expiration was "disappointing but far from a tragedy," said Stephen Young, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

If the sides fail to reach the new agreement ahead of next year's Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference, though, other states "will be far less likely to support the ambitious agenda" Obama has proposed for the meeting, Young said (Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 5).

“There is no way he (Obama) is going to rush this treaty. He is more interested in getting it right than finishing it by some arbitrary deadline,” Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, told Russia Today.

“The Russians seem to be convinced that what the right wing in the United States has been saying about President Obama is true -- that he is weak and vain and is more interested in securing the treaty than in getting the treaty right,” Cirincione said.

“They believe than Obama wants to finish the treaty before he goes to Oslo on Dec. 10 to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize and they are using tough negotiating tactics and refusing to agree on the last few details in the hope of gaining a concession. I think that this is a misreading of Obama," he said.

With the treaty no longer in force, Moscow and Washington are not required to carry out its verification measures or other requirements (Russia Today, Dec. 5).

U.S. officials are vacating Russia's Votkinsk Machine Building Plant after monitoring missile-manufacturing work at the site for more than two decades, Interfax reported (see GSN, Dec. 1).

"Most of the U.S. inspectors have left the plant and those who remained are expected to leave before the end of the week after they completely disassemble their equipment," a military-diplomatic source said (Interfax, Dec. 4).