{"id":475905,"date":"2010-03-26T13:31:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T17:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-4609699702546450103"},"modified":"2010-03-26T13:31:32","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T17:31:32","slug":"united-states-and-russia-agree-on-nuclear-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/475905","title":{"rendered":"United States and Russia Agree on Nuclear Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reports have stated that Russia has 3,000 nuclear warheads. The United States and Russia have just reached agreement on a nuclear arms treaty. (Start)<\/a>
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

Friday, March 26, 2010
19:39 Mecca time, 16:39 GMT <\/p>\n

US and Russia agree on nuclear deal <\/p>\n

Russia is believed to have about 3,000 nuclear warheads <\/p>\n

Barack Obama, the US president, and Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, have finalised the terms of a new nuclear arms reduction agreement.<\/p>\n

The two leaders approved the deal for a successor to the landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which will cut the amount of missiles deployed by both countries by one third, following a telephone conversation on Friday.<\/p>\n

Speaking from the White House, Obama said: “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.<\/p>\n

“By upholding our own commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we strengthen our global efforts to stop the spread of these weapons, and to ensure that other nations meet their own responsibilities.”<\/p>\n

Ratification required<\/p>\n

The two nations will sign the new treaty on April 8 in Prague, where Obama gave a major speech last April calling for a world free of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

The deal replaces the 1991 Start agreement which expired in December.<\/p>\n

Obama said he was looking forward to working closely with his fellow Democrats and Republicans in Congress to ratify the new treaty.<\/p>\n

Some analysts have said Republicans who staunchly back missile defence may try to deny the Obama administration the two-thirds majority it needs in the Senate to pass the treaty.<\/p>\n

Robert Gates, the US defence secreatry, said the new treaty did not set constraints on US plans to develop and improve missile defence systems.<\/p>\n

Patty Culhane, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Washington, said: “This is probably the first concrete success that President Obama can point to to when it comes to foreign policy.<\/p>\n

“This has been a very tough negotiation, it’s been going on for more than a year and the announcement is more than three months late.” <\/p>\n

Neave Barker, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Moscow, said that Medvedev had announced that “the agreement showed a balance of interests between the two countries”.<\/p>\n

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said the treaty had made a “significant contribution … to strengthening the regime of nuclear non-proliferation”.<\/p>\n

He said the treaty would “also increase the level of trust not only between Russia and the United States but more generally between nuclear and non-nuclear … members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty”.<\/p>\n

Difficult negotiations<\/p>\n

Under the terms of the treaty the two countries will reduce their number of warheads to 1,550 each.<\/p>\n

The US has said it currently has about 2,200 nuclear warheads, while Russia is believed to have about 3,000.<\/p>\n

Moscow and Washington have held months of difficult negotiations in Geneva aimed at replacing the treaty, a cornerstone of Cold War-era strategic arms control.<\/p>\n

Lavrov said: “I’d also like to note the unprecedented personal involvement of presidents Obama and Medvedev in agreeing on the new treaty. <\/p>\n

“They regularly discussed the situation in talks and developed a common understanding, which allowed delegations in Geneva to find solutions on the most complex issues.”<\/p>\n

The 1991 Start agreement led to huge reductions in the Russian and US nuclear arsenals and imposed verification measures to build trust between the two former Cold War foes.<\/p>\n

Delays in the Start talks and missed deadlines have cast a shadow over the Russian and US leaders’ efforts to make good on their pledge to improve bilateral ties.<\/p>\n

The US is set to host a nuclear security summit on April 12 to 13, and observers had said it had been a matter of pride for Washington to have the new treaty in place before the summit.<\/p>\n

A review conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is scheduled for May.<\/p>\n

Source: Agencies
<\/p>\n

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Reports have stated that Russia has 3,000 nuclear warheads. The United States and Russia have just reached agreement on a nuclear arms treaty. (Start)Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos Friday, March 26, 2010 19:39 Mecca time, 16:39 GMT US and Russia agree on nuclear deal Russia is believed to have about 3,000 nuclear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4243,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}