“If no-one feels like extending the agreement – New START – well, we won’t do it then,” Putin said at an economic forum in Saint Petersburg, referring to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. “We said a hundred times that we are ready ( to extend it),” Putin said, lamenting that Washington was “not conducting any talks” on the issue with Moscow.
“There is no formal negotiating process. And in 2021 everything will end.” The treaty was signed by US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Prague in 2010.
The agreement, which caps the number of nuclear warheads well below Cold War limits, is set toexpire in two years’ time.
Together with another agreement known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, New START is considered a centrepiece of superpower arms control. Washington and Moscow dropped the INF treaty earlier this year amid mutual recriminations.
Russia prepared to drop nuclear arms control agreement with US, known as New START : Putin
