Russia, US make more progress on START than expected
RIA Novosti
Moscow, 1 July: Russia and the USA have made greater progress in drawing up a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) than expected, which makes it possible that it will be signed by December this year, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has told RIA Novosti.
"The degree of progress is higher than the expectations we had when we started," the diplomat said ahead of the Russian-US summit [between presidents Dmitriy Medvedev and Barack Obama] planned for next week [6-8 July].
The new treaty should replace the current one, which expires on 5 December. [Passage omitted]
Ryabkov said that he now was more confident that by December "a substantial document would be produced, containing a set of measures for checking and exchanging information, containing provisions that ensure the parties' equal security and a real reduction in strategic offensive weapons through verifiable means".
He added that the "real reduction" meant "as compared with what we have in the current START-1 treaty and in the current Moscow treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SOR)". [Passage omitted]
Ryabkov expects that talks between Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev and US President Barack Obama during the latter's visit to Moscow on 6-8 July will "by all means" be a success, judging by preparations for the summit that have been conducted. The only question is how to preserve agreements in the future and how to make sure they are implemented in case of a possible change of presidential administration and US policy in the future.
"One should always work towards the best but prepare for the worst. This is the unshakable right [as received, presumably rule] of military science and diplomacy," Ryabkov said. He added that "the best guarantee against suffering a setback, against a deterioration in relations could be progress in the security agenda, in economic relations, humanitarian contacts, but - more substantially - our ability to overcome the significant mutual shortage of trust that had arisen in recent years".
"This task, in our view, is primarily on the US side, although one should not underestimate the degree of mistrust in US politics that exists in Russian society. This can be rectified only through actions," Ryabkov said.
In Ryabkov's estimate, during Obama's presidency - four or eight years, depending on the outcome of the next election - "under the current Democratic administration there is in principle sufficient time to create a guarantee against repeating mistakes and undesirable turns that we have encountered in the past".
At the same time Russian experts on the USA are more sceptical than their US colleagues as regards Barack Obama's policy aimed to "restart" relations with Moscow. During a discussion being held in the Russian capital under the aegis of RIA Novosti and the Russian foreign and defence policy council as part of the Valday club of experts, a warning was voiced that even the signing of a new START treaty might not add anything to strategic security if it turned out to be a mere desire to do something "nice".
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