US and Russia nuclear arms treaty [ 852 ]

US and Russia to sign nuclear arms treaty

Last-minute preparations for the signing have been under way in Prague BBC, Thursday, 8 April 2010 08:27 UK US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev are due to sign a landmark nuclear weapons treaty in the Czech capital Prague. The treaty, agreed last month, commits the former Cold War foes to cut their stockpiles to 1,550 warheads each, about 30% less than currently allowed. It also limits the number of launchers each country has. The treaty replaces the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which expired in December. The new limits must be implemented within seven years of the treaty coming into force. After it was agreed, President Obama hailed the deal as the most comprehensive weapons control agreement in nearly two decades. "With this agreement, the United States and Russia - the two largest nuclear powers in the world - also send a clear signal that we intend to lead," he said. Missile defence The US and Russian presidents will hold private talks at Prague Castle on Thursday morning before signing the treaty at a ceremony. Earlier this week, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the treaty marked a "new level of trust" between the two countries. TREATY LIMITS Warheads: 1,550 (74% lower than the 1991 Start Treaty and 30% lower than the 2002 Moscow Treaty) Launchers: 700 deployed intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments Nuclear milestone on a long road Global map of nuclear arsenals Q&A: New Start But he has also warned this week that Russia could opt out of the treaty if it felt threatened by US missile defence plans. It was Moscow's concerns over Washington's missile shield plans that delayed the current agreement. US President Barack Obama scrapped a previous plan for a missile shield based in Poland and the Czech Republic that had angered Russia. Mr Lavrov said Washington's current plans - which could include ground-based interceptor missiles in Romania - seemed acceptable to Moscow. Correspondents say the treaty marks the first step in President Obama's ambitious arms control agenda. It was in a keynote speech in Prague last April that he set out his vision of moving towards a world free of nuclear weapons. US nuclear proliferation analyst Joseph Cirincione said the treaty also signalled a major improvement in relations between the two superpowers. "This treaty is a major re-set of US-Russian relations which were at Cold War levels just 18 months ago after the Georgian war," he said. The White House has said it hopes and expects the US Senate to ratify the treaty this year. Russia's legislature must also do so. In a further development on Tuesday, President Obama unveiled the US Nuclear Posture Review, which narrows the circumstances in which the US would use nuclear arms. For the first time the US is ruling out a nuclear response to attacks involving biological, chemical or conventional weapons. However, countries will only be spared a US nuclear response if they comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - this does not include Iran and North Korea. US AND RUSSIA NUCLEAR WEAPONS BACK 1 of 2 NEXT