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Historic Arms Deal Between U.S., Russia Finalized
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Bush and Putin set to sign historic nuclear disarmament
deal
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WASHINGTON,
May 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.S. President George W.
Bush announced Monday, May 13, he would sign a sweeping nuclear arms
reduction "treaty" with Russian President Vladimir Putin
when the two meet in Moscow later this month.
News
of the deal came after U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton and
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov apparently managed to
resolve a dispute over decommissioning during talks in the Russian
capital.
"Today
I'm pleased to announce that the United States and Russia have agreed
to a treaty which will substantially reduce our nuclear arsenals with
an agreed-upon range of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads," Bush said.
"This
treaty will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War," ushering in a
new era of enhanced mutual security, he added. "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.”
The
Cold War between the two strong-powers has been believed by most to
have thawed after former U.S. president Ronald Reagan and former
Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev set out to break down barriers
between the two nations in the 1980s.
"When
I sign the treaty with President Putin in Russia, it will begin the
new era of U.S.-Russian relationships, and that's important."
"I
look forward to going to Moscow to sign this treaty," Bush said.
"It will be the culmination of a lot of months of hard
work."
Bush
and Putin are set to meet from May 23 to 26 in Moscow and Saint
Petersburg, and U.S. and Russian negotiators have been working
overtime for the past several months to prepare a legally binding
agreement to cement the reductions.
Until
the last minute the main sticking point remained a U.S. insistence
that it should be allowed to keep some of the decommissioned warheads
in reserve while Russia opposed stockpiling on the grounds it would
make re-use a possibility.
In
Moscow, Putin praised Bush on Monday for helping to strike the deal
that will see each side slash its nuclear arsenal from 6,000 warheads
to between 1,700 and 2,200 over the next 10 years.
He
said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov had told him an
"agreement was reached on the text of one of the basic summit
documents, the accord on reducing strategic and offensive arms."
"Without
the will of the U.S. administration and the involvement of President
Bush, reaching these agreements would have been difficult," Putin
said. "We are satisfied with our joint efforts."
The
announcement that Russia and the United States had finally hammered
out an arms reduction deal took seasoned observers by surprise after
months in which the two sides had signally failed to settle the
decommissioning row.
Even
Mamedov, going into his talks with Bolton Monday, had warned that
progress in the U.S.-Russian negotiations was proving
"difficult," Interfax reported.
The
Russian deputy foreign minister added that the subjects under
discussion with Bolton were divided into three distinct categories,
not only relating to the summit agreement.
A
second group of questions "related to strategic offensive
armaments, which will not be settled by the document, but mechanisms
for whose decisions will be made," Mamedov said, adding that the
final category involved strategic partnership as a whole.
The
two countries also reached an agreement on a procedure for counting
nuclear launch sites. Under the new deal, a launch site will be
counted as one – despite whether or not it is capable of carrying or
launching multiple warheads.
A
new partnership between the former superpower rivals in the wake of
the September 11 attacks on the United States will be high on the
agenda at the NATO foreign ministers' meeting starting on Tuesday in
Reykjavik.
Putin's
move last September to back the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan has
fostered closer relations between NATO and Russia, which are set to
approve a new "Council of 20" giving Moscow a say in
decision-making by the military alliance's 19 members.
Under
the new agreement, to be signed by Putin and alliance leaders at a
NATO-Russia summit in Rome on May 28, the 20th member will have a full
if non-voting role in key areas of the Atlantic organization’s
policy.
In
addition to anti-terrorism, these include global crisis management,
non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, defense against
short-range "theatre" missiles, arms control, high-sea
rescue missions and civil disaster plans.
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