GENEVA, September 30. /TASS/. A meeting of the Russian-US bilateral commission on the New START Treaty will be held in Geneva on October 5, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told journalists on Thursday.
"It will begin here on Tuesday, October 5," he said answering a TASS question.
The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the New START Treaty) was signed in 2010 and entered into force on February 5, 2011. The New START Treaty was to remain in force for 10 years, until 2021. It could also be extended for no longer than five years (that is, until 2026) upon the parties’ mutual consent.
Moscow and Washington exchanged diplomatic notes on an agreement to extend New START on January 26, and on February 3 the Russian foreign ministry and the US embassy exchanged notes on the completion of domestic procedures to enforce the New START five-year extension agreement. The Russian foreign ministry stressed that the extension of the treaty made it possible to preserve the key mechanism of maintaining strategic stability on a parity basis.
The second offline round of Russian-US strategic stability consultations ended in Geneva on Thursday. The Russian delegation was led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov. The US delegation was led by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. The first round of the Moscow-Washington strategic stability dialogue was held in July following the agreement reached by the Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Joe Biden of the United States at their June 16 summit.