Medvedev: Russia, US nuclear arms reduction treaty ‘95 percent ready’

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Medvedev: Russia, US arms treaty near completion

MOSCOW — A new nuclear arms reduction treaty is “95 percent ready,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday in the clearest indication to date that an end to wrangling over the seminal agreement may be close.

Medvedev said he is optimistic that a deal will be reached and that he was heartened by the pace of negotiations. “I expected the negotiations to take longer, but in the space of six months we have created the backbone of a document,” Medvedev said.

Expert-level talks to iron out the final details of the treaty are due to take place next month in Geneva. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and retired Gen. Jim Jones, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, were in Moscow last week to discuss treaty negotiations.

A new agreement would succeed the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, which expired Dec. 5. The two countries had hoped to reach a deal before the end of the year.

Medvedev and Obama agreed in July to cut the number of nuclear warheads each country has to between 1,500 and 1,675 under a new treaty.

While sounding a positive note over the START deal, Medvedev expressed reservations about missile defense plans, however.

“It is sly to talk about strategic nuclear forces without mentioning missile defense,” he said. “If nuclear missiles are launched, then defense missiles can be launched also.”

The United States has scrapped a plan to position a missile defense system in Central Europe that had angered Moscow, which accused Washington of undermining its national defense.

Russia praised Obama for the decision, but Russian officials also have said they want to know more about the sea- and land-based systems the U.S. plans to put in place instead.

Medvedev said Sunday the issue of plans for a missile defense system will be discussed at the nuclear arms reduction treaty talks.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that Russia has no intention to build a missile shield of its own, but that it will have to develop new offensive weapons to offset a future U.S. missile defense.

The Kremlin also was irked by Poland’s announcement last week that a base with a battery of U.S. Patriot missiles, manned by some 100 U.S. troops, will be installed in a town 37 miles (60 kilometers) from Poland’s border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

Poland said the missiles, to be installed in April, will be used to train the military.

But Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complained Friday that the plan created the impression that Poland is “bracing itself against Russia.”