BRUSSELS, December 1. /TASS/. NATO welcomes dialogue between Russia and the United States on the extension of the New START Treaty, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday after a videoconference between NATO foreign ministers.
"We welcome the dialogue between US and Russia to find a way forward, because we should not want to find ourselves in a situation where there is no agreement regulating the number of nuclear warheads," he said, adding that NATO supports the idea of a "more comprehensive arms control regime."
At the same time, he did not miss the chance to once again accuse Russia of "violating and undermining treaties and deploying new weapons."
The United States is insisting a new multilateral treaty, involving China, be signed to replace the New START. Washington however has ignored Russia’s initiative to unconditionally extend the treaty until a new one is agreed.
Moscow’s reaction
Commenting on Stoltenberg’s earlier pronouncements on this topic, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested he’d better call on the United States to extend the New START treaty and engage in constructive work to strengthen strategic stability.
Apart from that, Zakharova drew attention to Russia’s initiative to declare mutual moratorium on the deployment of intermediate-and shorter-range missiles in Europe that would boost security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic region.
New START
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 document stipulates that seven years after its entry into effect each party should have no more than a total of 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and strategic bombers, as well as no more than 1,550 warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs and strategic bombers, and a total of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and strategic bombers.
The New START Treaty will remain in force for 10 years, until 2021, unless it is replaced before that date by a subsequent agreement on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms. It can also be extended for no longer than 5 years (that is, until 2026) upon the parties’ mutual consent.
Moscow has repeatedly called on Washington not to delay prolongation of the treaty it describes as the gold standards in the area of disarmament.
In an interview with the Financial Times in late June 2019 Russian President Vladimir Putin said that once this treaty ceased to exist, "then there would be no instrument in the world to curtail the arms race."
On October 16, the Russian president came out with an initiative to extend the treaty unconditionally for at least one year. He said this time could be used to hold meaningful talks. The Russian foreign ministry said that in case the New START was extended, the Russian side was ready to freeze its nuclear arsenals, together with the US side, for that period if the US advanced no extra conditions.