Global Security Newswire

Russian and U.S. diplomats plan to reconvene on Oct. 19 to continue talks aimed at replacing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 5).

"The sixth round ended on Friday. The delegations have agreed to meet again on Oct. 19 in Geneva," said one Russian diplomatic official.

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 successor to the START pact, which expires in December. The two countries are required under an existing agreement to hold no more than 2,200 operationally fielded warheads by 2012 (Agence France-Presse/Dawn, Oct. 5).

Washington and Moscow could negotiate reductions to their nonstrategic nuclear arsenals after finalizing a START successor, according to a high-level U.S. Defense Department official (see GSN, Aug. 14).

"This is a subject I think that we would like to take up maybe at the next stage of the nuclear arms reductions process," Assistant Defense Secretary Alexander Vershbow told Interfax.

"In the current negotiations we're focusing on the strategic arms, but I believe President [Barack] Obama would certainly want to explore with Russian leaders the possibility of extending the disarmament process to tactical nuclear weapons in the future," he added.

"First we need to get the START-following treaty finished and then move on both to implement that treaty and then begin a new stage of nuclear arms reduction talks" Vershbow said (Interfax, Oct. 4).