WASHINGTON, June 21 (RIA Novosti) - The United States is ready to work together with Russia on a new nuclear security regime to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expiring in 2009, an assistant secretary of state said Thursday.
Addressing a Senate session on strategic aspects of Russian-American relations, Daniel Fried said Washington favored transparency and predictability, and added that the sides were discussing the issue.
The START I treaty was signed on July 31, 1991, five months before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It remains in force, as a treaty between the U.S. and Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have since totally disarmed their strategic arms capabilities, and the U.S. and Russia reduced the number of delivery vehicles to 1,600 units with no more than 6,000 warheads.
The treaty was followed by START II, which banned the use of multiple re-entry vehicles (MIRV) but never entered into force and was later bypassed by the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT), signed on May 24, 2002 by Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush in Moscow.
SORT, which expires on December 31, 2012, limited both countries' nuclear arsenal to 1,700-2,200 warheads each. The treaty has been largely criticized for the lack of verification provisions and the possibility of re-deploying stored warheads.
Russia's nuclear arsenal totaled 1,136 delivery vehicles and 5,518 warheads in December 2001.
