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[Third Issue of the Day]
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Russia hopes nuclear arms cuts "not just on
paper"
MOSCOW, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Russia sounded a warning on U.S. plans to store rather than destroy warheads to be cut from strategic nuclear arsenals, saying Moscow hoped the reductions "would be not just on paper."
A Foreign Ministry statement issued in the early hours of the morning following the presentation in Washington of a new nuclear strategy urged the United States to follow through on pledges to proceed with real cuts in parallel with Russia.
"We believe Russian-American agreements on further cuts in nuclear arsenals must firstly be radical -- down to 1,500-2,200 warheads, secondly verifiable, and thirdly irreversible," ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in the statement.
"That means strategic nuclear weapons must be cut not only 'on paper."'
A senior source in the Russian general staff, quoted by the daily Kommersant in anticipation of the announcement, said Moscow would object to such a move.
"Such a contribution by Washington cannot be acceptable -- offering 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs and 200-300 warheads whose working life has already expired," the source said. "It is ridiculous."
Assistant Defence Secretary J.D. Crouch, outlining the results of a Nuclear Policy Review sent to Congress on Tuesday, has said many inactivated nuclear warheads would be put into storage for emergency redeployment rather than being destroyed.
Crouch said Washington was not trying to "mislead anybody." He said it was "a prudent thing to have, in a very uncertain, period, some responsive capability."
Both Russia and the United States have pledged to reduce the size of their strategic nuclear arsenals, now standing at between 6,000 and 7,000 warheads each, to a figure somewhere between 1,500 and 2,200.
The issue of whether to destroy -- or merely store -- warheads removed from missiles was a focal point of discussions at a summit in November between presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush.
Putin said the issue was one to be examined in negotiations leading to a new treaty. U.S. officials took no firm position and left the matter open, with Bush suggesting that a new agreement need not necessarily be part of a formal treaty.
Crouch's comments were part of a broader presentation setting out Washington's vision of nuclear weapons by 2012 to abandon the Cold War-era emphasis on mutual deterrence.
U.S. defence policy is predicated on developing an anti-missile shield to guard against what Bush says are new threats in the 21st century -- primarily missile launches by "rogue states" like Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
Bush said last month the United States would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Washington sees as outdated and a hindrance in developing the missile shield.
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