By RIA Novosti,
Moscow : The U.S. and Russian presidents will meet in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to discuss progress towards a new bilateral arms control treaty, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.
“At a meeting that will take place in New York on September 23, [Dmitry] Medvedev and [Barack] Obama will hear a report on the progress of the talks,” Lavrov said.
Medvedev and Obama agreed in July in Moscow on the outline of a deal to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-1), which expires on December 5, including cutting their countries’ nuclear arsenals to 1,500-1,675 operational warheads and delivery vehicles to 500-1,000.
During a telephone conversation on August 5, Medvedev and Obama confirmed their intention to prepare a new nuclear arms reduction treaty by December.
The START 1 treaty obliges Russia and the United States to reduce nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. In 2002, a follow-up agreement on strategic offensive arms reduction was concluded in Moscow. The document, known as the Moscow Treaty, envisioned cuts to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 2012.
According to a report published by the U.S. State Department in April, as of January 1 Russia had 3,909 nuclear warheads and 814 delivery vehicles, including ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and strategic bombers.
The same report said the United States had 5,576 warheads and 1,198 delivery vehicles.