Key Item for Obama, Medvedev: New Arms Talks

[bemildred]

Source: WaPo

MOSCOW, March 31 -- For more than two decades, U.S. personnel have been posted outside an arms factory in the central Russian city of Votkinsk, stopping and scrutinizing any container leaving the facility big enough to carry a ballistic missile. Several times each month, American inspectors are granted access to silos and other sensitive sites across Russia to examine weapons and count warheads.

These procedures are part of an elaborate set of verification measures that for nearly 15 years have been the foundation of U.S. and Russian efforts to cut the two countries' nuclear arsenals -- and that are set to stop in December with the expiration of the landmark 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Launching talks to replace this treaty, known as START I, is expected to top the agenda Wednesday in London when President Obama holds his first meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Both U.S. and Russian officials hope such negotiations would restore trust to strained bilateral relations and clear the way for a renewed global push to eliminate nuclear weapons, a goal that both Obama and Medvedev have endorsed. But there are significant obstacles to a new agreement.

In 2002, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the Treaty of Moscow pledging to reduce each nation's strategic nuclear arsenal to 1,700 to 2,200 deployed warheads by 2012. But the accord relies on START I verification measures. A START II pact was reached in 1993 but never ratified, although both countries continued to reduce the size of their arsenals.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033103779.html

[FailureToCommunicate]

1. Been reading a lot about the Cold War recently. It is incredible how close we

came to Doomsday that October 1962:

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cold-war/sovietsbomb.htm


Thanks for posting this.

[bemildred]

2. You are welcome, it's long overdue. nt