US announces readiness for dialogue with Russia on START

Washington is ready to engage in dialogue with Moscow on the Strategic Arms Reduction and Limitation Treaty (START), US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Bonnie Jenkins said at a briefing. transmits TASS.

“We made it clear to them that there is really nothing that could interfere with the inspections. And we really want to have the opportunity to meet with the Russian Federation, because the implementation of START is so important from the point of view of national security,” she said.

At the same time, Washington wants to separate the discussion of START from the situation around the Ukrainian conflict, Jenkins stressed.

On February 6, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov announced that the United States trying present the situation with the START in the public field as not related to the Ukrainian crisis and are “quite free” with their obligations under the treaty. Against this background, the issue of resuming inspections “in principle does not look,” the diplomat stressed.

On February 1, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that Russia considers it important to extend the New START Treaty. “He is actually the only one that remains not only viable, but, at least hypothetically speaking, viable,” he said. Prior to that, on January 31, the US State Department notified the country’s Congress that it considers Russia’s “blocking” of American inspections a violation of the START-3 treaty.

START-3 was concluded in 2010 for 10 years, it was extended for another five years in 2021 with the coming to power of the administration of US President Joe Biden. It is now the last arms control treaty between Russia and the United States in force. It provided for the reduction of strategic weapons to 700 deployed (and 800 in total) carriers (submarines, intercontinental missiles and heavy bombers) and 1,550 deployed warheads.