Russia Seeks Nuke Deal With Tougher U.S. Government

Date: 20 January 2021 - 21:40

News ID: ۸۶۷۴۰

MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- The Kremlin said on Wednesday it remained committed to extending the New START nuclear arms control treaty with the United States and would welcome efforts promised by the administration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to reach agreement.
The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) accord, which was signed in 2010 and expires in February, limits the numbers of strategic nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers that Russia and the United States can deploy.
"Russia and its president are in favor of preserving this agreement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. "If our American colleagues will in fact demonstrate a political will to preserve this pact by extending it, this can only be welcomed.”
While Biden’s aides indicated that he intends to work quickly to extend the treaty, the incoming president is also expected to take a tougher stance on Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year called on Washington to extend the last major nuclear arms pact between the two countries for a year without any conditions.
A failure to extend New START could fuel a potential arms race and tensions between Moscow and Washington.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Wednesday reiterated that it was necessary to preserve the New START Treaty, a 2010 arms reduction accord that limits Russia and the United States to 1,550 nuclear warheads and is set to expire February 5.
Under President Donald Trump, the United States withdrew from two major international accords -- the Iran nuclear deal and the Open Skies treaty -- and pulled out from a centerpiece arms control agreement with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.
Gorbachev called for Russia and the United States to repair their strained relations, hours before Biden was to enter the White House.
Tensions have soared between Moscow and Washington under Trump, fuelled by fresh allegations of sweeping cyber-attacks among a litany of other disagreements on the world stage.
"The current condition of relations between Russia and the United States is of great concern,” Gorbachev said in an interview with state-run news agency TASS.
"But this also means that something has to be done about it in order to normalize relations,” the last Soviet leader said. "We cannot fence ourselves off from each other.”