WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has shifted a deadline for completing a new arms control agreement with Russia to replace a major Cold War-era pact and now hopes to resolve remaining details by the year's end, U.S. officials say.
The Obama administration had expressed hopes recently of reaching a deal by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty's expiration on Dec. 5. Earlier officials had spoken of having a ratified treaty fully in effect before then, a goal that is now beyond their reach.
"Both President Obama and President Medvedev are committed to completing a treaty by the end of the year," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday.
Letting the old treaty lapse should not present a problem because the countries are negotiating an interim agreement that would maintain START's provisions. That includes allowing each countries' inspectors to continue to verify that the other side is respecting the terms of the expired treaty.
The shifting goals reflect the intensive haggling as the two sides try to resolve the remaining technical issues. The Obama administration would like a quick conclusion to demonstrate an improvement in U.S.-Russian relations and to gain momentum for other arms control and nonproliferation goals. Washington also is looking for cooperation on issues including reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions. However, Russia has fewer incentives for an immediate deal.
The two sides have already agreed on the broad outlines of an agreement. Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed at a Moscow summit in July to cut the number of nuclear warheads each possesses to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years as part of a broad new treaty. The existing START treaty set a limit of 6,000 warheads each.
It's unclear exactly how many warheads the two countries have now. But in 2002, then-presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush signed the Treaty of Moscow, which specified further cuts to between 1,700 and 2,200 operationally deployed warheads by 2012.
Negotiators already have worked through a number of contentious issues and agreed on the number of warheads, the number of delivery systems and what will count as a delivery system, officials said.
Russia had been pushing for an explicit link in the new treaty between offensive weapons and missile defense, but it is unlikely that the final deal will include any limitation on U.S. missile defense. A joint statement in July by Medvedev and Obama linked the two, but any missile defense restrictions would complicate the treaty's approval by the U.S. Senate.
Another tricky issue has been how to count nuclear-capable delivery devices such as intercontinental ballistic missiles that are armed with non-nuclear bombs. The Pentagon has sought to maintain this capacity to make long-distance precision strikes against dangerous targets. The U.S. military is unlikely to keep many ICBMs for this purpose because of the extreme cost of the missiles. A final deal might count any conventionally armed ICBMs under the limits of delivery devices.
As the Dec. 5 deadline looms, the two sides also are negotiating an interim agreement that would maintain START's provisions and allow both countries' inspectors to continue to verify that the other side is respecting the terms of the expired treaty.
That means that missing the Dec. 5 expiration date should not have immediate consequences. Still, the Obama administration has a tight schedule to seek ratification of a new treaty by the U.S. Senate, which is likely to take months before voting. Obama also is seeking ratification of an international test ban treaty before next year's congressional elections in November. The longer the START negotiations take, the less likely the Senate will have the time to consider the test ban ratification.
Reflecting the urgency, the administration has sent very senior officials to join the negotiations. The administration had hoped to resolve the remaining differences late last month when Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, delivered in Moscow what the United States hoped would be a final package of proposals. However, Jones' Russian counterpart, Sergei Prikhodkom came back with a counter proposal.
The two officials were negotiating face to face in Washington on Wednesday, according to U.S. National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer.
Obama's top military adviser, Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Russian officials from Sunday to Tuesday in Geneva.
Both sides were expressing goodwill and hopes of a deal soon. After it is concluded, the U.S. Senate and the Russian Duma would have to ratify it, a process that could take months.
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