Moscow, Oct 16 (AFP/APP): President Vladimir Putin on Friday proposed that Moscow and Washington extend for a year and without any conditions the last major nuclear arms reduction accord between Russia and the United States.
The New START deal was signed in April 2010 but went into force in February 2011. It lasts for ten years but with a possible extension.
“I have a proposal — which is to extend the current agreement without any pre-conditions at least for one year to have an opportunity to conduct substantial negotiations”, Putin said at a meeting of his security council, according to a Kremlin statement.
At the meeting Putin asked Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to “formulate our position to try and get at least some sort of coherent answer from them in the nearest future.”
Tensions have raged for months over the fate of New START, which caps the number of nuclear warheads held by Washington and Moscow and expires on February 5, 2021. Earlier this week the United States said it had reached an agreement in principle with Russia to extend New START, but Moscow quickly rejected US conditions. With three weeks to go before US elections in which US President Donald Trump is trailing in polls, the administration indicated it would support preserving the treaty for an unspecified period.
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