U.S. walks out on Russian nuke talks
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Angela Charlton
April 24, 2002 | Moscow --
A top U.S. arms control negotiator left Russia on Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy
said, apparently cutting short talks on a deal on nuclear arms cuts that both sides
hope to clinch before a presidential summit next month.
The embassy gave no reason for Undersecretary of State John Bolton's departure
early Wednesday. Earlier, a U.S. Embassy spokesman had said talks were expected
to continue through Wednesday.
Bolton led a U.S. delegation in discussing the arms control agreement Tuesday
with Russian officials led by Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov, in the latest
of several arms control consultations ahead of President Bush's visit to Russia in
May.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Valery Loshchinin said Wednesday the talks were
"not proceeding very easily," and that "several fundamentally important problems
still need to be overcome," according to the Interfax news agency.
The Russian Foreign Ministry would not comment Wednesday on Bolton's
departure. Ministry spokesman Vladimir Oshurkov said only that the talks were
scheduled to last two days.
In a statement late Tuesday, the ministry said the first day of talks produced "a
constructive and substantive exchange of opinions with the aim of solving the
remaining disputed questions."
Bush has said he is ready to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 1,700 to 2,200
warheads from the current 6,000 each country is allowed under treaty. Russian
President Vladimir Putin has said he would go further, to 1,500 warheads. Bush
initially favored an informal deal, but later agreed to Putin's push for a legally
binding agreement.
However, talks have snagged on Moscow's objection to the Pentagon's decision to
stockpile decommissioned nuclear weapons rather than destroy them. The
ITAR-Tass news agency, citing an unidentified diplomatic source, said the same
issued blocked agreement this week.
The Foreign Ministry stressed that Russia is pushing for an agreement that would
produce "real, controllable cuts" to 1,700-2,200 warheads each.
Before Tuesday's talks, Bolton sounded upbeat.
"The relationship between the United States and Russia has fundamentally
changed. ... We are working as hard as we can to show as much of that progress
in the agreement form as we can," he said.
Top Russian arms control experts spoke out Tuesday against the deal, saying it
would require bowing to U.S. demands. They predicted that overall U.S.-Russian
relations, bolstered by Putin's support for the U.S.-led war on terror, would remain
strong even if a nuclear treaty isn't signed in May.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage will be in Moscow for talks Friday on
the global anti-terrorism campaign, including the U.S.-led military operation in
Afghanistan. |
