09:00, 12.10.20 – UNIAN
Russia’s dismissive public statements are likely a negotiating tactic, one official says.
U.S. President Trump is looking to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to close the deal on a pre-election nuclear agreement,.
National security adviser Robert O’Brien and his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, met in Geneva on October 2. As a result, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov scheduled a visit to Helsinki to meet Trump’s arms control envoy, Marshall Billingslea, according to Axios.
Ryabkov, however, earlier said that “there are still huge differences in approaches, including to the central elements of such an agreement.” Talk of an imminent deal is hardly “realistic,” he added.
Rose Gottemoeller, the chief U.S. negotiator for New START, says such a deal “could be done tomorrow” because “the contours are already there” and it doesn’t require the precision of a binding treaty.
“Trump has clearly conveyed that he wants the deal to be done, and I think Putin would very much like to sign a deal with President Trump,” she says.
Russia’s dismissive public statements are likely a negotiating tactic, she says, employed in the knowledge that Trump’s timeline for a deal is far tighter than Putin’s.
“When there’s that much high-level attention, negotiations tend to succeed,” she says with a laugh. “I experienced it with President Obama and President Medvedev breathing down my neck, as well as my Russian counterpart.”
What’s START treaty
START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), signed on July 31, 1991, and enforced on December 5, 1994, on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms, as per Wikipedia.
The treaty barred its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads atop a total of 1,600 inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and bombers.
Its final implementation in late 2001 resulted in the removal of about 80% of all strategic nuclear weapons then in existence. July 31, 1991, and entered into force on December 5, 1994.
START III treaty was signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama on April 8, 2010, and enforced on February 5, 2011, the BBC wrote.
It trimmed U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads – a cut of about 30% from a limit set in START II. In addition, it imposed legally binding limits on the number of warheads and missiles that can be deployed on land, on submarines, and on bombers, at any one time.
The headline seems a bit misleading because I think Putin wants a deal or an extension more than Trump does. The existing treaty expires soon and Putin is worried about what Trump would do without a binding treaty. Trump’s not too worried about Putin’s nuke advancements because he is a paper tiger. If Putin can’t be transparent with a new treaty than there won’t be any deal. Putin can’t be transparent because he’s a seasoned KGB liar. So it’s pretty easy to see where this is going.
I agree, it is well known that the US want China involved with this nuclear deal, not just Russia. Anyway any treaty signed by shorty is only good for wiping your ass on.
Same as it would be with China too. China doesn’t care about anything except money, Putin doesn’t care about anything but power.
Let them sweat. Sign nothing at all, the US don’t have a thing to lose by not signing any treaty.
Is Donny running out of toilet paper that he needs such treaty to wipe his ass with?…
I think he’d like a feather for his cap if the Limping Imp was brought to heel before the election but if he doesn’t, the conditions for a new treaty will be much more severe after the elections.
The Dems will rig them elections.
They’re certainly trying. It’s questionable if they will be able to cheat enough to beat Trump and it not be caught.