FINANCIAL TIMES: The Start arms control treaty ratified by the US Senate this week was supposed to be the first step in a two-stage process that would make big cuts to the US and Russian nuclear arsenals. But officials are already warning that the next step will be much more difficult.
“This is a modest step,” Rose Gottemoeller, chief negotiator for Barack Obama, US president, told reporters on Thursday. She emphasised that the US Senate had asked the administration to start work on new negotiations with Russia that would encompass tactical, rather than just long range strategic, nuclear weapons. “It is a transitional treaty.”
A senior administration official told the FT no successor deal was likely for at least four or five years, citing differences over missile defence, verification and tactical nuclear weapons themselves, as well as the different nature of the two countries’ arsenals… (more)
