Nuclear weapons: Putin wants to renew the New Start treaty quickly with the United States
The previous Strategic Nuclear Weapons Treaty had forced both parties to halve their nuclear missile launchers.
For Vladimir Putin, the decision must be taken as soon as possible “so that it does not give rise to multiple interpretations of our position”.
The Russian president wants to renew by the end of the year with the United States the treaty New Start (an acronym for a treaty on the reduction of strategic weapons) on strategic nuclear weapons, to prevent it from becoming obsolete as became this year the Treaty on Intermediate Nuclear Weapons (INF).
This agreement was considered a pillar of world security going back to the Soviet era preventing the arms race.
Washington has so far shown little interest in the five-year renewal of a New Start treaty after the expiry of the current treaty in early 2021, seeking to extricate itself from its constraints.
The latest treaty between Obama and Medvedev The New Start treaty, concluded in 2010 between the presidents of the time, the American Barack Obama and the Russian Dmitry Medvedev, while relations between their two countries were much warmer, is considered the last nuclear agreement still in force, containing the arsenals of the two countries below their Cold War peaks.
The agreement forced the two protagonists to halve their nuclear missile launchers and set up a new control system.
These statements by Vladimir Putin come the day after hearings before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives on the importance of the New Start treaty.
The situation “could change dramatically and quickly” without such a treaty and eventually lead the United States to a “strategic crisis,” said former US Assistant Secretary of Armaments Control, Rose Gottemoeller.
By Le Parisien with AFP