Disarmament Documentation
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US-Russia Arms Control Breakthrough Announced, May 13
US Comment & Reaction
Announcement by President Bush
'Remarks by the President', The White House, Office of the
Press Secretary, Washington, May 13.
Today I'm pleased to announce that the United States and Russia
have agreed to a treaty which will substantially reduce our nuclear
arsenals to the agreed-upon range of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads. This
treaty will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War.
When I sign the treaty with President Putin in Russia, it will
begin the new era of US-Russian relationships. And that's
important. The new era will be a period of enhanced mutual
security, economic security, and improved relations.
I look forward to going to Moscow to sign this treaty. It is -
it will be the culmination of a lot of months of hard work, and a
relationship built on mutual trust that I established with
President Putin in Slovenia.
This is good news for the American people today. It'll make the
world more peaceful, and put behind us the Cold War once and for
all.
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Background Briefing by Senior US Official
'Background Press Briefing by a Senior Administration Official
Regarding US-Russian Arms Agreement', The White House, Office of
the Press Secretary, Chicago, May 13, 2002.
Official: As you know, during the campaign, the President
made clear that he was interested in reducing the strategic nuclear
weapons deployed by both the United States and the Russians. After
a lot of work, last year, on November 13th, in the context of the
Washington-Crawford summit, the President announced his decision
that the United States would reduce our nuclear forces to between
1,700 and 2,200 operationally deployed nuclear warheads. President
Putin at that time made comments which indicated that he supported
this approach, and a month later President Putin announced that
Russia would also make similar reductions. As the President
announced this morning, negotiating teams from the two sides have
agreed on the terms of a treaty which reduces strategic nuclear
arsenals on both sides to 1,700 to 2,200 weapons over the next 10
years. The treaty requires that by the end of 2012, each side will
have between 1,700 and 2,200 strategic nuclear weapons.
The President has said all along that he wanted a new agreement
to reflect our new relationship with Russia. Instead of a
negotiation which took multiple years and consumed multiple forests
worth of paper, what we have is a negotiation that's lasted
essentially five to six months, has produced a treaty which when
fully prepared will be about 3 pages long. Under this treaty, both
sides can make reductions in their own way, according to what
serves their own best interests. Each side will reduce according to
its own plans and will determine for itself the composition of its
strategic forces. And this will result, as we've pointed out in a
cut of about two-thirds in the US and Russian operationally
deployed forces.
Under this treaty, the United States will retain the flexibility
we require for an uncertain security environment in the future, as
set for in the Defense Department's nuclear posture review. And we
would point out that the treaty also proves, as the President has
said in the past, we can have effective missile defenses and also
agree with the Russians on further offensive nuclear reductions.
...
Question: So can you tell us how many of these weapons
will be decommissioned and how many will actually be
dismantled?
Official: I can't tell you how many, because the Defense
Department will be - is still working on that. But some of the
weapons will be dismantled, some of the weapons will be placed in
deep storage, and some of them will be stored as operational
spares.
Question: How about this idea that Russia has said in the
past, that decommissioning a weapon isn't destroying it, and it's
not really reducing your arsenal? Have you reached some sort of an
agreement with that, or do you still agree to disagree on that
point?
Official: We have agreed, as I said, that some warheads
will be dismantled and some warheads will be stored. Now, if you go
back and look at the history of arms control agreements, for
example, START II, we would have - each side would have taken its
reductions largely in the form of what's called downloading, or
removal of warheads from operational missiles, and having those
warheads placed in storage. So this is not a new departure. It is
not virtual arms control. If START II was the breakthrough which it
was announced to be - and it was - we're following the same kinds
of rules.
Question: Have you - has the United States offered Russia
more access - a more transparent build-down process? I've read
something saying, a day-to-day availability to the Russians of
information about US nuclear arsenals.
Official: Each side will be working to provide the other
with more transparency. As a baseline, as a baseline, the rules,
the procedures that were created under START I, which require
on-site inspection and counting of warheads and actually going to
operational bases and looking in missile silos or in submarine
tubes, will apply. And the sides are going to continue discussions
on looking at further ways to enhance transparency.
Question: Are any of those ways specified in the four
corners of the binding treaty itself?
Official: No, no, they are not. But a bilateral
implementation commission will be created. And that commission will
pursue enhancing transparency and predictability.
Question: Will the numbers 1,700 and 2,200 be in the
three-page treaty?
Official: Yes, they will.
Question: There will be a range -
Official: Yes, they will - 1,700 to 2,200 will be in the
treaty.
Question: We could chose to go to 1,700, and the Russians
could chose to go to 2,200, and that would be legal under the -
Official: That would be legal under the treaty.
Question: Is there a side understanding on missile
defense?
Official: No. There is no side understanding on missile
defense.
Question: Will those issues - will missile defense issues
continue to be discussed, or what - how are they dealt with?
Official: All issues are discussed. One of the...is that
in an additional agreement that's being prepared for this summit,
which is a broad statement of principles, there is language which
talks about enhanced cooperation in many areas, to include enhanced
cooperation in missile defense activities. But this agreement, this
agreement is solely restricted to reducing strategic nuclear
arsenals.
Question: What are the numbers that both countries have
at this point?
Official: Today each side has about 5,000 to 6,000
operationally deployed nuclear weapons.
Question: I thought it [w]as 7,000 -
Official: 5,000 to 6,000.
Question: On the bilateral implementation commission, how
much time do they have and who is going to be on this thing?
Official: It hasn't been set up yet.
Question: All right, but do they have any timetable? You
have 10 years here, so when does - how much time does the
implementation commission have -
Official: I would presume that the implementation
commission will begin meeting as soon as the treaty enters into
force.
Question: Do you know how long the Defense Department
will take to review and make a decision about how many of these
weapons will be dismantled or destroyed?
Official: No, I think it's going to be - first, I would
defer the question to the Department of Defense. But I think what
they will say to you is it is going to be a rolling process, as
they evaluate the security requirements we have, and the health of
the warheads that are in our stockpile, because we don't build any
new warheads. The warheads that we take off serve as, first and
foremost, a set of operational spares. Through the Department of
Energy and Department of Defense's stockpile stewardship program we
learn more things every day about how the warheads are aging. So
that will also condition what they will decide as far as
dismantling. The third factor is that dismantlement is something
done by the Department of Energy. And over the last 10 years, the
DOE facilities, the infrastructure which do the dismantlement work,
degraded a fair amount because of budget cuts. We are building that
back up, but our ability to dismantle warheads is not something
which is particularly strong at this point.
Question: On that point, sir, what happens in this
process for this implementation commission to resolve disputes that
come up along the way about storage versus dismantling of the
weapons -
Official: Again, this is not going to be a dispute. Each
side will structure its forces in its own way. Each side will take
its reductions as I said, through a combination of retirements, of
eliminations, and of storage. But that's not going to be the focus
of the implementation commission. The focus of the implementation
commission will be to provide transparency into what each side is
doing so that each side is confident that the reductions, in fact,
are occurring over time. And unlike other agreements where there
used to be mid-points - you know, the START agreements had
mid-points to reach certain warhead levels - this agreement
provides for an endpoint, so the sides will need to provide each
other with a fair amount of information that this submarine is
being retired, this submarine is going into overhaul, it's not
going to count, we're going to be taking these missiles out
according to this schedule.
Question: Have the US and Russia right now agreed upon a
definition for a reduction?
Official: Yes.
Question: Therefore, as long as that reduction is taking
place, each side can do what it pleases with regard to retirement
of weapons?
Official: That is exactly right.
Question: When is the treaty expected to come into force?
And what is the ratification -
Official: As soon as it's ratified by the Senate and by
the Russian Duma.
Question: Can you elaborate on what you described earlier
as the uncertain security atmosphere that necessitates this
flexibility? What are you talking about?
Official: Well, the Defense Department, in its nuclear
posture review, as you're aware, said that the future is not
particularly certain and that there may be requirements for us to
have nuclear capabilities far into the future. That's all it said.
Now, as far as the Russian Federation is concerned, what this
document shows, what the President said, is that we have put behind
us the notion that Russia is our enemy, and that we need to
structure our forces based on how the Russians structure theirs,
while we, in fact, need to be concerned that we shape Russian
forces in a particular way. So 'other contingencies' has not a
great deal to do with the Russians. And again, let me say, the
warheads that we have - we are going to 1,700 to 2,200. As to the
warheads which are removed, some will be eliminated, some will be
placed in deep storage, and some will be used as operational
reserves.
Question: Are there provisions for recycling or reusing
the plutonium?
Official: Not in this treaty. ...
Question: So none of the plutonium can be reused, or we
can reuse it -
Official: No, you can reuse it. There is nothing which
prohibits the plutonium from being reused. But again, we have no
capability today to build new warheads, and we're not going to be
building new warheads. So we're not going to be recycling these
pits or this plutonium to build new warheads. ...
Question: Does the President want this process to begin
even while the Senate is considering the treaty, since he has said
he wanted to go ahead unilaterally anyway?
Official: You mean the reductions process? We are going
to reduce. The President announced in November that we are going to
reduce, and we are going to reduce - we are on that track now. The
Defense Department is making plans now to retire the 50
Peacekeeper Missiles, and to take four Trident
submarines, and convert them to non-nuclear uses - non-strategic
nuclear uses. So, yes, we are drawing down. Similarly, the Russian
Federation is drawing down its strategic forces, below the START I
levels. So these reductions are taking place now, and will
continue.
Question: Just to be precise on a couple of points. First
of all, you used the word treaty several times. This will be a
formal treaty, requiring -
Official: This will be a formal treaty -
Question: - a two-thirds vote of the Senate?
Official: That is correct.
Question: And as I understand what you said, the treaty
is totally permissive on the question of decommissioning versus
storage, so that technically speaking, neither side is forced to
destroy a single warhead, if it so wished.
Official: That is correct.
Question: That has the look of a trade-off, and the
Russians were very strongly in favor of a treaty and the most
formal and binding agreement as possible. The United States'
position on the question of decommissioning seems to have been
accepted on -
Official: Well, when you negotiate a treaty, a lot of
things are in play. But I wouldn't draw that strict conclusion,
because if you go into the specifics, as I said - transparent - we
are establishing more and more transparency. One of the places
where it's hardest to find transparency is in the nuclear
laboratories, especially in Russia, and at nuclear facilities in
Russia. For the Russians to let us - for the Russians to push hard
for a warhead destruction regime which then would allow us into
their factories is a bit of a stretch. That was by no means a clear
Russian position. That was more in the press than it was in the
Russian government position. And because they also do continue to
manufacture new warheads, because their warheads have shorter
shelf-life than ours, to get into a situation where you mandate
destruction on the one hand, but you're allowing new warheads to be
built on the other is a bit of an odd situation if you're calling
for a treaty. That's why we're focusing on operationally deployed
weapons. We're focusing on those weapons which are in the field and
which are responsive to the Presidents, not warheads that are in
stockpiles.
Question: Two quick questions. The range between 500
missiles - 1,700 to 2,200 - represents a 30-percent variance,
depending on which number you choose. Why go for a range, as
opposed to specific numbers? Also, on the issue of security, Russia
could have as many as 4,000 warheads decommissioned, but floating
around out there. What are we doing to ensure that they don't fall
into the wrong hands?
Official: Well, to go to the second point first, we have,
under the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, or the Nunn-Lugar
program, provided a significant amount of assistance to the
Russians to enhance the security of their nuclear warhead
facilities. This is why the Nunn-Lugar program is in their
interests, but it's also in our interests. This whole concept of
ensuring that Russian warheads are under tight control has been a
principal pillar of US policy with Russia over the last 10 years.
With regard to...your first question... A range allows planners on
both sides to have some flexibility as they work to the future, as
they look to adjust force structure. Remember, warheads just don't
exist, they exist tied to bombers, they exist tied to missiles,
they exist tied to submarines. So as you adjust your force
structures, you don't get them in packages of one or two, sometimes
you get them in larger or smaller packages. The range is the same
kind of a range which existed in the START II treaty, 3,000 to
3,500 in that case, and it affords both sides some room to work
their force structures.
Question: [I]n big picture terms, it looks like the US
position generally prevailed. The Russians got a binding agreement
that doesn't bind us to do anything other than what President Bush
was ready to do unilaterally. Is that wrong?
Official: Yes, I think that's wrong. I think this is a
treaty that both sides went in, in which both sides are cutting
their nuclear forces by two-thirds, in which both sides will have
confidence that they're cutting their nuclear forces by two-thirds,
and that we're doing it in ways which two years ago all of you
would have said, this is significant arms control. It's the way
we've always done arms control in the past. So it's not as if the
Russians were forced to take a US position. As I say, the
controversy about destroying warheads was more a controversy in the
press than it was between the two sides, because the Russians also
have requirements to maintain some sort of a stockpile in reserve.
And they also have the same problems in terms of the factories that
dismantle and refurbish warheads are the ones that help produce new
warheads. So dismantlement was more of a public issue than it was
an issue between the two sides.
Question: Since we were going to reduce anyway...[and]
since it does not matter how they are dealt with, either stored or
destroyed, what is the benefit of the agreement? What does it
do?
Official: I think one thing that it does is that it makes
this legally binding. The statement that the President made in
November was a statement of US policy, and as some of our Russian
interlocutors said to us, we believe you and we believe President
Bush is serious about carrying this out, but what happens after
President Bush leaves office? Can another US President reverse that
policy? And obviously, the answer is, yes, another US President
could reverse that policy. The same applies to statements by
President Putin. What you have here is an agreement which legally
requires both sides to move in the direction that we said we wanted
to go. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, we said we
wanted to go in a certain direction; the Russians said that they
wanted to go in a certain direction, that they wanted some
guarantees, and we thought that this was a good thing to do. What
we didn't want to do was to hold up the reductions for another
eight years of negotiations in Geneva. We were not prepared to do
that. Nor were we prepared to get into the old business of saying,
we're really going to retire these missiles, but we're going to
keep them around, even though they're over-age and not supportable,
as a bargaining chip to use in this non-zero sum game of arms
control that we've all experienced for the past three decades. So
what we did was to say, this is a win-win situation, we're both
going in this direction, and we're going to write it down and we're
going to do it in a clear, easy, comprehensible way, and we're
going to do it quickly.
Question: What are the withdrawal provisions, and is
there a notification -
Official: There is a supreme national interest clause, as
with other agreements.
Question: And how much time?
Official: I believe it's three months.
Question: You talked about what happens to the warheads
during decommissioning. What happens to the delivery systems - the
missiles, the bombers? Is there any requirement for decommissioning
or the destruction -
Official: There's no requirement for that, but I think in
practical fact, most of those that are retired will likely be
destroyed. Now, some - let me be clear. First of all, you should go
to the Defense Department and get the status of that. There are
some elements of the Peacekeeper missile which I know have long
been planned to be used as space-launch boosters, but not - clearly
not in their role as military intercontinental-range ballistic
missiles.
Question: Were there any MIRV warheads [missiles armed
with multiple, independently-targetable re-entry vehicles, each
capable of destroying a separate target] left when this treaty
-
Official: Absolutely. The Russians - there would be MIRV
warheads on the US side because our Trident submarines will
continue to carry multiple warheads. What the Russians do, the
Russians will do. But that is - as I said, how they structure their
forces is up to them. We have not tried to channel them in a
certain direction, as we did during the Cold War. And that reflects
an important change. The President has been saying, they're not our
enemies, we're not their enemies. This agreement does not reflect
the kind of Cold War focus on forcing our view, or their view, of
strategic stability on the other, because we're not that concerned
about their forces anymore.
Question: Why today? Did they reach an accord over the
weekend, or why was the announcement -
Official: The announcement was this morning because, in
fact, the negotiators that have been meeting, say, every three to
four weeks, intensively certainly since December-January, and
somewhat preliminarily before that, since August, really, actually
reached their agreements, the last agreements, this morning in
Moscow.
Question: What was the last agreement?
Official: Well, there were a couple. ...
Question: You mentioned that we are no longer enemies.
Are there any ways for increasing transparency of the nuclear
planning process? You've been referring several times to a nuclear
defense review, and we both know that both sides are still
targeting each other. So is there a way -
Official: Neither side targets the other at this point.
As you know, since the mid-1990s, no missiles on the US side are
targeted, and that is the same case on the Russian side.
Question: Correction taken. But we remember the press
reports that Russia is still on the list of countries potentially
to be targeted by the United States. Is there any way of increasing
confidence in that -
Official: Well, the answer is, yes. There have been,
again, since the late summer a series of Defence
Department-to-Ministry of Defense consultations. Those will
continue. Those are generally - they are held at the under
secretary level - Under Secretary of Defense Feith and Deputy Chief
of the General Staff Baluyevfsky; sometimes at a lower level, and
sometimes between Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Minister of
Defense Sergei Ivanov. So those discussions will continue.
Transparency is one of the main topics which is on the agenda for
those talks. We seek a better relationship across the board with
the Russian Ministry of Defense, and indeed, as we continue our
cooperation in the war against terrorism, that kind of transparency
and increased cooperation is going to be absolutely vital. So that
is clearly part of it.
Question: So as a matter of practical purpose, if the
Senate does not ratify this, what difference will it make? You're
going to go ahead with the reductions, so what happens if the
Senate doesn't ratify it?
Official: I guess you could ask that question. We will
continue to reduce, but to some degree an element of predictability
in the long-term US-Russian relationship will have been removed.
...
Question: The President in November said that we needed
no formal treaty whatsoever, and he was making a unilateral
decision, he was going to disarm at the level he wanted to disarm.
Now we're signing a treaty. Has the President shifted to believe
that a treaty is in the US interest, or is it only a concession to
the Russians?
Official: The President, as you may recall - I think it
was in Crawford; it may have been in Washington - said that
President Putin had asked him to write this down and that he would
look at that, he would consider that. The President has always been
open as to form. What the President wanted to avoid, as I said from
the beginning, was, one, holding the reductions in abeyance while
we went into a long classic arms control process. As long as this
could be accomplished quickly and as long as this did not impede
our ability to move forward, and as long as it was reciprocal, and
as long as the Russian side also found that it was in Russia's
national interest, the President was prepared to sign a treaty. And
that's where we ended up.
Question: But he does believe the treaty is now also in
the US interest?
Official: Absolutely. The President believes this treaty
is in our interests, for the reasons that I gave you, that it helps
further codify and establish predictability in the long-term
US-Russian relations in a way which will go beyond him and
President Putin, beyond their terms in office.
Question: How many warheads are there presently in
storage as opposed to -
Official: I have no idea. I have no idea. There are
thousands of warheads in storage on both sides.
Question: Does this supersede all the provisions of START
II and START I, if it's ratified?
Official: No. The treaty makes very clear that START I
remains in effect by its own terms and in its own way. I think that
we could say that we have moved beyond START II. START II was one
of the first treaties - actually, was the first treaty that
featured dramatic reductions in nuclear warheads, but it still had
a bit of a Cold War orientation. This treaty moves beyond START II
because it goes to lower levels and it recognizes the new
relationship, the new era in US-Russia relations in that we are no
longer concerned about the way the Russians configure their forces,
nor are they concerned about the way in which we configure ours.
...
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Statement by Senator Joseph Biden
'Biden welcomes proposed strategic force reduction treaty,
looks ahead to Senate review process for the agreement', statement
by Joseph Biden, Democratic Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, May 13.
It is very good news that the United States and the Russian
Federation have reached agreement to significantly reduce our
nuclear arsenals. The treaty that President Bush has said he will
sign will cut the number of warheads each of our nations may retain
to between 1,700 and 2,200, down from about 6,000. Eliminating
these weapons of mass destruction would make Americans more secure
and the world a safer place. I salute President Bush for his
leadership on this issue and his partnership with President
Putin.
I especially welcome President Bush's decision to submit this
new treaty to the Senate for its advice and consent to
ratification, as opposed to sending it to both houses as an
executive agreement. Requiring a treaty - and so the support of
two-thirds of the Senate - for arms control agreements contributes
to a stable foreign policy. Even as the White House and the Senate
change hands, it is rare that a treaty commitment, once made, is
reversed.
Once this treaty is formally submitted, the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee will approach it as we have all other arms
control agreements, asking some basic questions: Will this treaty
make the United States more secure? Will it reduce the danger of
nuclear war? Will it stand the test of time?
We also will be looking at some very specific questions: Are the
reductions generally irreversible, or will most of the weapons be
put in storage for later use? Will the reductions take place
promptly? How well will we be able to verify Russian compliance
with the treaty's provisions? What are the mechanisms to
effectively implement and enforce the treaty?
I have every hope that we will be able to begin hearings on this
treaty this summer.
Source: Text - Senator Biden Welcomes New US-Russia
Arms Control Treaty, US State Department (Washington File), May
13.
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Other Comment
Secretary of State Colin Powell, Moscow: "The days of the
Cold War, the days of mutually assured destruction, are over."
(Powell, Ivanov back arms accord before summit, Reuters, May
12.)
Democratic Senator Jack Reed, Chair of the Armed Services
Committee' Strategic Subcommittee: "The best reduction, the
most final reduction, is to destroy the warheads...[and so] avoid
creating a limit that could be easily undone by signing signs on
the warhead...[from] 'non-operational' to 'operational'..."
(Lawmakers laud US-Russia accord, Associated press, May
14.)
Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman: "This is a bold,
significant step. Both countries have enough nuclear weapons to
destroy each other and most of the rest of the world, even after
this agreement. So the reduction males the world a safer place."
(Bush and Putin to sign nuclear pact, New York Times, May
13.)
Republican Senator Richard Lugar: "President Bush's
announcement that a nuclear reduction treaty with Russia will be
forthcoming at the summit later this month marks a step toward a
safer world. It fulfills one of the President's campaign pledges. I
would hope that the Senate could move quickly to the ratification
debate. To accomplish the reductions there will need to be
continued cooperation under the Nunn-Lugar program which has
already deactivated 5,896 nuclear warheads in the former Soviet
Union." (Text - Senator Lugar Welcomes New US-Russia Arms
Reduction Pact, US State Department (Washington File), May
13.)
Republican Senator Jon Kyl: "If there was going to be
some opposition [in the Senate], it might be postulated as coming
from conservatives. The benefit of the agreement from a
conservative point of view is that it once and for all buries the
notion of the balance of terror. I think conservatives should be
very supportive for that very reason." (Bush and Putin to sign
nuclear pact, New York Times, May 13.)
Unnamed senior administration official: "The Russians
wanted a treaty, and the Senate demanded one." (Bush and Putin
to sign nuclear pact, New York Times, May 13.)
Joseph Cirincione, Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace: "His [President Bush's] only concession was to make it
legally binding, but there are so many loopholes in this that it's
legally binding mush... [President Putin] would have accepted
whatever the administration was offering. He's decided the future
of Russia is tied wirth the West and he doesn't want to let an arms
control agreement get in the way."
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Russian Comment & Reaction
Foreign Ministry Statement
'Russian-US Talks in Moscow to Prepare Documents for
Russian-US May Summit', Russian Foreign Ministry Statement,
Document 955-07-05-2002, May 13.
Another round of Russian-US talks to prepare documents for the
Russian-US May Summit was held in Moscow on May 13. The Russian
inter-agency delegation was lead by Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy
Mamedov and the US delegation by Under Secretary of State John
Bolton.
The sides conducted a substantive review of the drafts of the
new START Treaty and the declaration on a new strategic
relationship between the Russian Federation and the US, and their
positions were cardinally approximated as a result.
Recommendations regarding the preparation of documents for the
Russian-US summit will be submitted for approval by Russia's
Minister of Foreign Affairs and the US Secretary of State at their
upcoming meeting in Reykjavik on May 14.
The sides also exchanged views on other arms control and
disarmament issues.
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Interview with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
'Transcript of an Interview by RF Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov Granted to ORT Pozner's Vremena Program, May 12, 2002',
Russian Foreign Ministry transcript.
Question: The document that will be signed during the
Moscow meeting of the presidents of Russia and the US, is it a
treaty or an agreement?
Foreign Minister Ivanov: That issue is yet under
discussion. The Russian side thinks it should be a treaty. The main
thing, however, is that it will be a legally binding document, and
it will be subject to ratification both in the United States and in
the Russian Federation. The difference is that according to the
rules and procedures in the US, it requires two-thirds of the votes
to ratify a treaty and a simple majority of the votes to ratify an
agreement. That indicates the importance of the document. So, we
believe that considering the importance of this problem that is
raised in the document, it should be a treaty. But the question has
not yet been decided.
Question: Igor Sergeyevich, will the START treaty be in
any way linked with the development of the national missile defense
in America?
Ivanov: From the start, the new US administration has
declared that we do not see each other as adversaries and no
treaties or agreements are needed between partners. This question
was discussed in the course of the top-level talks. But in view of
the importance of the START problem we said that while we are all
in favor of partnership relations but we have not yet reached a
level of confidence that fully rules out verification. So, the
question of the need to conclude the Treaty was raised by our side.
START I expired last year, but it will be in effect until 2009.
START II is not in force because the United States has not ratified
it. It is withdrawing from the ABM Treaty. That creates a vacuum at
a very important and critical moment in the field of arms control,
including control of nuclear arms. So, we thought that it is very
important to start these negotiations and achieve a certain
understanding, certain principles and criteria. The talks will
continue, but at this stage we must commit to paper the agreements
that can already be signed before we move forward. The linkage
between offensive and defensive weapons was confirmed in the
political declaration at the meeting of our presidents in Genoa
[last year]. The thesis will be reflected in the document on
strategic arms reductions. ...
Question: Is the US ready to discuss with Russia any
limitations on the creation of national anti-missile defense?
Ivanov: In our talks with the American partners, the
American side stresses that the anti-missile defense it is planning
to create it will be of limited character. It's important that they
stress that it will not pose a threat to the strategic forces of
Russia and to the global strategic balance. I hope that in the
course of negotiations we will manage to put these principles in
the Declaration that is expected to be adopted in the course of
President Bush's visit to Russia, and that these principles will be
implemented in practice once they are fixed in the declaration. So,
our view is that rather than creating mini nuclear bombs we should
jointly strengthen the regime of non-proliferation of mass
destruction weapons.
(Note: in further comments during his May 12 television
interview, not included in the Russian Foreign Ministry transcript,
Ivanov remarked: "Yes, we have disagreements over what to include
and so on. But we are stating our goal. We are moving toward
reduction rather than increases. Therefore, we are about to sign -
I would not call it an overly ambitious document, [but] a vital
document...and a real one, from the standpoint of continuing the
process of arms control. ... We can take the path some people
propose: let us have no documents at all [until we get what we
want]. But I think that this path will lead to even more chaos in
weapons control." See Powell, Ivanov back arms accord before
summit, Reuters, May 12.)
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Interview with Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov
'Transcript of an Interview by Deputy Foreign Minister of the
Russian Federation Georgy Mamedov to Public Russian Television May
13, 2002,' Russian Foreign Ministry transcript.
Question: What is the situation regarding the preparation
for the summit?
Mamedov: It is now easier because after the first round
of the talks very important high-level exchanges have taken place
at the political level. Above all, the telephone conversation of
the Presidents on May 7, as well as the visit by Igor Ivanov to
Washington where he discussed issues with President Bush and had
extended conversations with the Secretary of State. On the issues
remaining over and above the Treaty and the Declaration we have
clear-cut instructions on how to work towards looking for
solutions. On the Vremena program on ORT channel yesterday
the Secretary of State expressed considerable optimism saying that
the Declaration and the Treaty will be signed and we share this
optimism and will try to do everything we can.
Question: There are some controversial questions, for
example, what will happen to the warheads: will they be stored or
destroyed. Will that question be discussed?
Mamedov: All the issues will be discussed. We will follow
through the whole range of topics, not only on the text because the
negotiations are always broader than the text. There are three
groups of issues: first are the ones that we are going to address
in the concrete agreement (we hope it will be a Treaty). We are
given ten years to accomplish that. We must clearly identify the
goals, the perspectives and the mechanism. Another group of issues
is issues connected with strategic offensive weapons which will not
be solved in this concrete agreement, but mechanisms will be
created for discussing and solving them. And a third group of
issues is the issues without solving which strategic stability is
impossible, but which, strictly speaking, are not issues connected
with START cuts. This is above all, the issue of anti-missile
defense. We will discuss these three groups of issues, and, I hope
that on the issues that should be in the agreement (I repeat, we
hope that it be a Treaty), we will reach mutually acceptable
results, and we will report back to our Ministers, who, as you
know, will meet in Reykjavik tomorrow.
Question: How are the negotiations proceeding?
Mamedov: The negotiations are proceeding with difficulty.
First, because the topic is very complicated, and second, because
there was a big break after START II after the American side
decided not to ratify START II, and thirdly, the new administration
came along with its own approach. The new military doctrine, new
plans of the building and use of nuclear weapons were published.
Because Russia and the US plan their nuclear forces ten years
ahead, and not one year, naturally, we too, had to analyze our
plans considering new aspects in the approach of the American side,
so, the negotiations meet with heavy going. But we hope that the
agreement we are working on will work out, and if the Presidents
approve it, it will not be the last. There will be other agreements
in the field of strategic defensive weapons or, ABM systems.
Question: You said that the negotiations were sticky,
complicated, but George Bush has indicated that we will go down to
1,500-1,700 warheads. What is the problem?
Mamedov: The positions were set forth long ago. Let me
remind you that we were the first to set up this position in
November 2000 before it became known who will be the next president
of the US. Even as they were counting the bulletins [ballots] in
Florida, the Russian President Vladimir Putin made a statement
proposing to the American side to cut the strategic offensive
weapons to 1,500. After that the American side took some time for
reflection. Then the US President made a statement in May [2001]
advocating radical reductions of strategic offensive weapons. Then
the ceiling of 1,700-2,200 warheads after ten years was reached.
Thereafter, one of the most complicated procedures was to translate
it into a legally binding language of treaties so that even after
the Bush administration, after 2004 when a new President of the
United States is, perhaps, elected, everything we agreed upon
should be in effect so that it should be real agreements that are
verified.
Question: The question of warheads is more or less clear.
But what to do about carriers? Our Defense Ministry has accused the
Americans of not going to reduce the carriers, unlike us. They, for
their part, will simply refit their B-52, to carry precision
weapons which does not mean a reduction of carriers because at any
moment they can be refitted to carry nuclear weapons. Will the
carrier topics be addressed?
Mamedov: The topic of carriers will constantly be at the
focus of attention and this has nothing to do with the position of
the Foreign Ministry, the intelligence and the Defense Ministry. We
have a national position approved by the Russian President. Our
position is simple, clear and logical. We are still bound by START
I Treaty signed in 1991 and it will be in effect until 2009. It
describes everything in detail: what is to be done with carriers,
when they should be refitted, when they should be reduced, etc. We
want all these procedures of the Treaty which is in effect and
which has been ratified, to be fulfilled and then there will be no
questions between us and the Americans. So, we are conducting
negotiations on how to integrate the START I provisions into the
new agreement which we hope to prepare for the US President's
visit.
Question: Does the Treaty being prepared for the summit
contain a provision on the conditions on which this or that side
can withdraw from the Treaty?
Mamedov: Of course, any international document of that
caliber contains a point that reserves the right for any side to
terminate the Treaty if its interests are threatened.
Question: Can there be any other reasons?
Mamedov: This is reason enough, as we see it.
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Remarks by President Vladimir Putin
We are satisfied with the joint work... Without the interested,
active position of the American administration and the attention of
President Bush, it would have been difficult to reach such
agreements.
Source: Putin hails nuclear arms deal, Associated
Press, May 13.
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© 2002 The Acronym Institute.
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