Moscow’s foreign ministry angers Washington by announcing it is canceling the meeting due to begin this Tuesday in Egypt at a time of maximum tension over the war in Ukraine
Russian diplomacy on Monday announced the suspension of a planned meeting between the Russians and the Americans to discuss the possible resumption of their inspections under the New Start treaty on nuclear disarmament. A decision that immediately sparked anger in Washington. “The session of the bilateral advisory committee on the Russian-US START treaty, originally scheduled in Cairo from November 29 to December 6, will not take place on the dates indicated,” the Moscow foreign ministry said, quoted by the TASS agency. “The event has been postponed to a later date,” he added, without giving further details.
The postponement, announced by Russia in a context of maximum tension with the West in the ninth month of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, drew criticism from the US administration. The Joe Biden administration accused Moscow of having “unilaterally” suspended talks due to begin in Egypt on Tuesday.
As reported by a State Department spokesman to CNN, Russia has limited itself to informing the US that it will be absent from the table and that it will propose a new date for these talks at a later date. In this sense, the aforementioned spokesman stressed that Washington is “ready to reschedule this meeting as soon as possible” as resuming talks is “a priority” to continue counting on the START agreement as an “instrument of stability” . From Russia, the Foreign Ministry has confirmed the adjournment of the meeting, although it has not delved into the matter.
Washington and Moscow announced in February 2021 the entry into force of a five-year extension of that treaty with the aim of “strengthening the national security of both countries” and ensuring “verifiable limits on intercontinental nuclear weapons”. The START treaty was signed in 1991 by the then leaders of the US and the Soviet Union, George HW Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. In April 2010, the agreement was replaced by the New START treaty, signed by then-Presidents Barack Obama and Dimitri Medvedev.
White House chief Joe Biden has shown willingness to negotiate a new arms control framework to replace the current pact with Moscow, which expires in 2026 and whose last meeting of that committee dates back to October last year. The New START treaty is the latest bilateral nuclear agreement between the two countries. Signed in 2010, it limits the arsenals of the two powers to a maximum of 1,550 warheads each, which is a reduction of about 30% compared to the previous limit set in 2002. New START also limits the number of launchers and heavy bombers to 800, which is still enough to destroy Earth several times.
Source: La Verdad
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