Global Security Newswire

The Obama administration wants to continue strengthening U.S. relations with Russia, national security adviser Gen. James Jones said today while visiting Moscow to discuss progress in preparing a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (see GSN, Oct. 28).

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 the new agreement, down from the 2,200-warhead limit the states are required to meet by 2012. The leaders also pledged to restrict strategic delivery vehicles on each side to between 500 and 1,100.

"I would like to ... on behalf of President Obama, reassure you and your colleagues that the path that U.S. and Russian relations are on right now is one that's full of promise and potential," Jones said in Moscow, where he was meeting with senior Russian officials, according to Agence France-Presse. "We want to do everything we can to bring that good state of an affairs to a conclusion."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the urgency of negotiating a treaty to replace the nuclear arms control pact, which expires Dec. 5.

"We believe that only the most intense work will allow us to fulfill the agreement by our presidents to do everything possible to reach a new agreement on strategic arms reductions before the current treaty expires," he said (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Oct. 29).

Jones had a "very good discussion on a number of bilateral issues" with his Russian counterpart, he told the Associated Press as he exited the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko expressed confidence that the U.S. official's "successful" trip would help in finalizing a new agreement (David Nowak, Associated Press/Washington Post, Oct. 29).

Medvedev's senior foreign policy adviser said the sides have made "serious progress" over the past weeks toward agreement on a new pact, but that "difficult questions" must still be addressed, AFP reported yesterday.

"We are seeing a strong political impulse both from the U.S. president and from the Russian president," said Sergei Prikhodko, according to Interfax (Agence France-Presse II, Oct. 28).

Moscow still wants each side to keep only roughly 500 nuclear-weapon delivery systems under a new treaty, while Washington wants to retain around 1,100 delivery vehicles, the upper limit of the range agreed to at July's summit, a Washington-based think tank indicated, according to AP.

In addition, Russia wants to the new treaty to count stockpiled nuclear weapons while Washington only wants it to address weapons deployed on launch-ready delivery platforms, according to the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation (David Nowak, Associated Press).