Group items tagged

Officials from both countries say the last-minute problems center not so much on numbers – the new lower ceiling of strategic nuclear weapons the accord would establish – but rather on issues like verification and the intrusiveness of inspections for confirming treaty compliance. Russia maintains that the verification regime of the original START was too onerous and is no longer needed.

The trouble in reaching an accord on a START 1 follow-on may also portend a steep climb ahead for President Obama’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons – a goal whose next way station is expected to be a summit on international nuclear security that Mr. Obama has called for April in Washington.

Officials from both countries say the last-minute problems center not so much on numbers – the new lower ceiling of strategic nuclear weapons the accord would establish – but rather on issues like verification and the intrusiveness of inspections for confirming treaty compliance. Russia maintains that the verification regime of the original START was too onerous and is no longer needed.

Russia's powerful prime minister, ex-President Vladimir Putin, may have just tossed a wrench into the sensitive last-minute negotiations aimed at finalizing a new US-Russian strategic arms reduction deal early in the New Year. "The problem is that our American partners are developing missile defenses, and we are not," Mr. Putin complained Tuesday. "In order to maintain balance, without developing the antimissile system just like the US is doing, we have to develop an offensive combat power system."

Putin's demand is that the US should provide full data on any antimissile tests it conducts, or else Russia will withhold information about its tests of new offensive weapon systems. "There is almost no chance the Americans will agree to this," says Mr. Golts.